


The Stars (And the Infinity of the Sky)

by tisfan



Series: When Stars Collide [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: But working on it, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Friday is Thirsty, Immortality, Just Add Ninjas, Kidnapping, Lady Thor, M/M, New Avengers, Not Entirely Team Cap Friendly, Steve is not Tony friendly, The Hand, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23295817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony Stark is just settling in to life with the New Avengers Team (She-Hulk, Lady Thor, Spider-man, the Vision, Venom, and Iron Man) and trying to deal with his disaster of a boyfriend, when, of course, everything goes to hell.Now Eddie is missing, Venom is an anxious symbiotic mess, and somehow, someone thought adding Ninjas to the mix would be a good plan.Posting Schedule: This fic is about half complete (6 chapters written, 7 to go) and completely outlined. I will post once every 3 weeks (usually on Wednesdays, but today is celt's birthday, so happy birthday, Celt.)
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Tony Stark/Venom Symbiote
Series: When Stars Collide [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675333
Comments: 93
Kudos: 138





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celtic7irish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celtic7irish/gifts).



> So, this is the continuation of the story Snowball's Chance in Hell. You probably want to go back and refresh your memory, at least, because some of this stuff carries over... also, I am stealing liberally from Venom comics and the DareDevil / Defenders TV shows. Since Tony and Eddie are finding out about these things in the story, you don't need to have seen the netflix stuff for this to make sense. (I hope) And I'll add notes about the shows and comics that I'm referencing as needed. 
> 
> Thanks to celtic7irish for their vocal and enthusiastic encouragement of this ship.

Venom tossed one of the bad guys with precision, right into Parker’s web. **Just hang around a moment, we’ll get to you soon,** the symbiote growled. 

Tony could just barely hear the sweet sound of Eddie’s voice underneath. Sometimes he didn’t really know if Eddie and Venom shared a brain as well as most of a body. It didn’t matter, he loved them both. But sometimes he wondered what it must be like, to share himself so utterly. It didn’t matter. Venom pronounced Eddie the best possible host and aside from a few moments of first aid, didn’t really bother to inhabit anyone else.

“That’s it, you and Webhead aren’t allowed to have playdates anymore,” Tony said through their coms. “You’re starting to talk like each other.”

“Aw, Mr. Stark--” Parker started to protest and then took a missile to the chest. 

Tony tried not to wince. Parker was a lot tougher than he looked -- he’d almost have to be, really -- and the missiles were scavenged from Justin Hammer’s factories, so they were crappy missiles to start with. He might, however, have repulsored that bad guy with a little extra prejudice. 

“Rude,” Lady Thor said, whizzing through the air, tugged by Mjolnir. “Pick on someone your own size.”

The bad guy decided that discretion was the better part of valor and tried to run. Tried, because _his own size_ \-- aka She-Hulk -- grabbed him by the pants for a truly heroic wedgie and hung him up next to his cohort.

“So that’s a wrap, right boss?” 

Friday did a quick scan, grabbing data from all of Parker’s spiderbots and the neighboring traffic cams. “All the scumbags are accounted for, boss.”

“ _Scumbags_? Have you been watching cop shows again?”

“ _The Rookie_ ,” Friday confirmed. “Can’t help it, boss. Nathan Fillion has a great ass.”

Tony about choked on his tongue. “I didn’t know you were interested. I can probably talk to him, get him to drop by.”

“Oh, would you?” Friday gushed like a schoolgirl with a crush.

“Friday says there’s no remaining scumbags,” Tony said. “Jane, can you do a spin--”

“Calm thy tits, Tony, I’m on it,” Jane said, and Mjolnir threw her up into the air. There had been rather a mob of bad guys, and several more had popped out midway through the melee, so it was hard to tell if they’d actually gotten them all. 

Everyone would feel better with a thorough check. 

They hadn’t been particularly dangerous for Avengers, but they weren’t the kind of rabble one wanted on the streets, armed with substandard, Chitauri-modified weaponry. Hammer kept mucking with stuff he didn’t understand, but that wasn’t unusual. The guy kept breathing, and Tony wasn’t sure Hammer knew what _oxygen_ was.

“So, who are these guys anyway,” Jen said. She never unhulked, the way Bruce would, but that was okay, because she was smart and sassy all the time. That said, a woman with muscles that could bench press a Sherman was damn impressive on the battlefield. People had been known to give up just when she walked out.

“I don’t know, they didn’t leave a calling card,” Tony said. He dropped the armor to the ground, clanking up to the two hangers on. “Hi up there. Want to do this the hard way, or the easy way? Come on, the easy way, just once, that’d be--”

“We will never--”

“Hard way, great,” Tony said. “They always--”

**Look out!**

There was a blur in the air and suddenly Tony found himself wrapped in symbiote while a small explosion went off inches from where his unprotected face had been moments before.

“I don’t guess it’d kill you to be careful once in a while, would it?” Eddie muttered.

“You’re more like to kill me if I’m not careful,” Tony quipped. “You can put me down, Bubble Wrap, I won’t break.”

 **We have our doubts** , Venom bellowed morosely. 

“Can you yell just a little quieter?”

**No.**

“Bad guys now, lover’s quarrel later,” Jen said, and she threw something -- it might have been a mailbox, or a very small Chevette, Tony couldn’t quite tell around his face full of symbiote.

“I thought they were all wrapped up?”

“Don’t you know a distraction when you see one, Mr. Stark? It’s like that old movie--” Whatever Peter was about to say was swallowed up in another explosion. “Ow.”

“Enough!” Lady Thor yelled, raising Mjolnir to the sky. 

“Shut down, shut down, shut it--” the HUD went dead as Lady Thor sprayed the whole area with lightning. Which was great for getting rid of bad guys, and not great on the circuits that ran the suit. A few seconds later, Friday rebooted. Good girl.

“Okay, are we done here, because I really feel like it’s getting close to having to clock overtime,” Tony complained.

Lady Thor pushed up the visor on her helm, revealing Jane Foster’s face, triumphant and a little sweaty, underneath. “I do believe they’ve all been vanquished.”

“Did the archaic speech patterns come with the hammer? Because you have a PhD in astrophysics, not Shakespeare.” 

“Cool story, bro,” Lady Thor said. When she pulled the helmet all the way off, it seemed like she was more… herself. The entire power worthy of Thor was-- well, Tony wasn’t sure what it was. He wasn’t entirely sure that it mattered, either, because there it was. Lady Thor. He didn’t know what happened to the other Thor, either, and Jane didn’t seem inclined to discuss it.

“You’re all just a bunch of freaks,” one of the bad guys swore. And stamped his foot like he was in third grade. Cut rate villains these days. “You don’t deserve to be here, not you, space goo, or you, Tin Man, or that blind devil--”

“Is there someone I’m missing?”

The bad guy continued his rant for a few minutes, and finished with “--the Hand will destroy you all!” and then pulled a tiny blade from behind his neck--

“Shit, shit, Jen, Jen, stop him!”

But it was too late. The man had slit his own throat. He was dead in a splash of blood that painted the sidewalk.

**He’s dead now. Are we allowed to eat him?**

“Much as I want to say yes, my love,” Eddie said, “we probably need the corpse for something.”

**Waste of food.**

“I’ll buy you a five-pound Hershey bar,” Tony promised. “We’re not going to get any information out of a dead man.”

“But we might, if we make a deal with the devil,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“The blind devil,” Eddie said. “I-- I might know a guy. But he’s really jumpy, so-- Vee and I will go have a chat with him, see what he might know about all this Hand business. Hand. Stupid name for a group of villains. They should be the Solar Plexus or something.”

“Eddie--”

“I’ll be fine, baby,” Eddie said. “We need intel right now, we’re shooting in the dark. And investigating, that’s… that’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at.”

“No, darling,” Tony corrected. “You’re a hot-shot youtuber who used to have a job. You’re very, very _bad_ at investigating. You are, however, pretty good at instigating.” He smirked, though, because both things were true. And Eddie knew it. He got his story, but he did it by annoying the ever loving fuck out of people.

**Also, he is a loser.**

“You two make me feel so loved,” Eddie joked.

Tony made a face and leaned over to kiss his boyfriend’s cheek. Venom slithered over Eddie’s skin at the last second, making it a dual kiss. “You two are the loves of my life,” Tony said, utterly sincere. “And I don’t want anything horrible to happen to you.”

“Yeah, no, all the horrible stuff happened before Venom showed up,” Eddie said. “Don’t worry. We’re just going to go talk to some people.”

“Every time you say don’t worry, it just makes me worry more,” Tony complained. “Go, talk to your friend, keep me posted. Don’t… burn anything down, blow anything up, or get arrested.”

**That is a short list. Still, could be tricky.**

“Try real hard, big guy,” Tony said. “I don’t want to be filling out more than one incident report.”

“Stop fretting,” Eddie told him, and then both of them kissed him, not a cute little peck, but deep, with a lot of tongue (in Venom’s case, absolutely obscene amounts of tongue) and Eddie’s arms went around Tony’s back. He wanted to lose himself in it, sink into it, but--

“After incident reports,” Tony said, pushing back lightly. “I’ll see you soon.”

***

It was getting dark before Venom came out to play, taking over Eddie’s body and moving them rapidly through the concrete jungle. 

“What’s Klyntar like,” Eddie wondered, picturing something like Jurassic Park, full of thick, huge trees and angry carnivores.

**We don’t know. We’ve never been there.**

“You don’t know any of the stories, don’t your people… tell stories?”

 **Not the way you think of stories.** Venom turned inward, introspective. Sad, somehow. **The Klyntar are a benevolent species, but there is no literature on my home planet. And though it is our goal to make the universe better, we create no art, no music, no culture. At least, not as other civilizations would understand it. All we have are our hosts -- the beings we join with -- to forge through the cold and unforgiving cosmos with. The bond between a Klyntar and its host is sacred. They give our lives context and our existence meaning. They give us history. All we have are our hosts to tell us who we are.**

“Riot didn’t seem very benevolent,” Eddie said.

**We were cast out. For being corrupt.**

“You’re--”

**I was. Then I met you. Then I bonded with you, and I knew everything had to change. You and this special, beautiful planet.**

“Love you too, big guy,” Eddie said.

Matt Murdock had been the lawyer -- blind, and very, very good -- that helped get Eddie off for the crimes he’d done while under the influence. And Venom leniency. Those trials had built off the trial of James Barnes, the Winter Soldier. And after that, Josef Sokolov had also gotten off.

Which was how Eddie met Murdock.

And then, not much after that, Venom had a little run in with DareDevil, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Who was, in fact, Matt Murdock.

Venom could smell it.

When the Hand -- whatever that was, and whoever the bad guy was -- mentioned the blind devil, Eddie thought, maybe it was Murdock who knew… something.

There were a few problems with that. First of all, Murdock had no idea that Eddie and Venom knew who he was, and his alter ego.

The second problem made the first one moot.

They couldn’t find the damn guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n Venom’s quote about culture Venom Vol 3 #3


	2. Chapter 2

_Six months ago_

**Remember when we said this planet was lovely?** Venom threw a dumpster with extreme prejudice. Given that the man they squashed with it had been wielding a goddamn sword at them, Eddie decided not to chide him for overt hostility.

“Yeah?”

**Some parts are very, very ugly.**

“I did not order ninja assassins,” Eddie said. “This is not my fault.”

 **Ninja assassins** , Venom mused. **This is like dinner-food.**

“Stop that, you sound like Tony,” Eddie said.

**We like Tony.**

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie said. They’d been trying to do the whole long-distance thing and it wasn’t really working out. Eddie had been in New York for a week’s vacation, as well as some investigating reporting, and quite a lot of fucking Tony. Now he was home. But he didn’t see this working out long term. Not really. Not with the distance. Eddie wasn’t a great boyfriend, either. He knew that. Everyone who’d ever dated him knew that.

**You are a loser.**

“So you’ve said, could you, hey, watch it with those throwing stars,” Eddie complained. Venom sealed over the small cut, but Eddie was already feeling dizzy. “Poison--”

Because that was what ninjas did, right? They poisoned people. Venom had learned Eddie’s body chemistry, they knew what poison did, and how it worked. Usually they were able to filter the bloodstream right away, but…

“Vee, my love?” Eddie didn’t quite stagger inside his symbiote but only because Venom was holding them upright. “I don’t feel so good.”

**Eddie. EDDIE!**

Everything faded, not to black, but red, and--

* * *

Venom raged as they found themselves alone in their body. Eddie was still alive, but unresponsive and Venom couldn’t figure out why.

They grabbed one of the ninja-dinner things, wrapped it in tentacles, holding it fast, like a cocoon. Maybe it could answer questions after.

Assuming that there was an after.

Eddie was floating inside the protoplasm that made up Venom’s body, heart rate slowing.

 **EDDIE,** Venom yelled. **EDDIE WAKE UP.**

Another ninja-dinner attacked, and Venom decided that if Eddie wasn’t awake, Eddie couldn’t argue with them about eating people who might or might not have been bad. Venom was unclear, really, about what the difference was. The ninja-dinner disappeared in a few bites. Angrily, Venom reached down their own throat and pulled out the sword and a handful of sharp, pointy things.

The sharp pointy things made good throwing weapons, and Venom gave them all back to the dinner-ninja’s friends. Pointy bits first.

Venom threw another one into a wall, relishing the satisfying crunch as bones broke and skin split under the pressure. **What did you do to Eddie?** they demanded.

The problem, Venom knew, was that they did not know everything, much as they tried to play off to Eddie that they did. They certainly didn’t know everything about human physiology. Venom had almost killed Eddie at first, because they didn’t know what healthy, functional humans were supposed to look like from the inside. They had bad templates, they did it wrong.

This was not quite like that, but the substance that was burning through Eddie’s veins was nothing they’d ever encountered and they didn’t know how to fix it. 

It was possible they could bleed Eddie dry, get rid of the toxin, and then revitalize the blood generating cells, but that was risky.

**EDDIE!**

“You know,” someone said, dropping out of the sky and landing in a crouch near Venom’s side. “You could yell just a little less loudly. Heard you halfway across the city.”

Venom almost attacked; half panicked because Eddie wasn’t answering him, surrounded by enemies and suddenly this new person came from nowhere, then they got wind of his scent.

**We know you.**

“Quite likely,” the man said. He wore red leather armor and a mask with tiny horns. “Do me a favor and don’t bellow it at the top of your lungs.” The man snapped out with one hand, knocked a sword out of one of the remaining dinner-ninja’s hands. “These are the Hand, what’d you do to piss them off?”

**We didn’t do anything.**

“Right,” the man said, and Venom remembered him now. Matt Murdock. The speaker who defended Eddie against court charges. The one who kept Eddie free. “They’re just here to welcome me to San Diego. I can tell.”

**What did you do to piss them off?**

“Numerous offenses, too many to list now.”

While talking, Murdock managed to take out three more of the dinner-ninjas and the rest were melting away into the darkness. Venom might have pursued them, but they had more pressing issues.

**What did they do to my Eddie?**

“Can you bring him to the surface?” Murdock asked, and when Venom melted away, the lawyer leaned in, then said a word that Venom did not understand. They spoke other languages, could understand them, provided the host could. A few things would remain, when switching hosts, but language was not always one of them. It involved too much of brain and memory. “I have an antidote.”

**You will give it to Eddie.**

“I’d give it to anyone the Hand wants dead,” Murdock said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

**We are your friends.**

“I know. Come on, bring him, it’s back at my hotel room.” 

On the downside, Venom wasn’t used to walking around as himself. Very few day-to-day humans saw him. 

On the plus side, it seemed that Murdock had the same concerns. They didn’t merely stroll down to the local Motel 6, but instead leaped across rooftops -- humans did not tend to look up -- or ducked into dark alleyways.

Murdock’s room was near the top of the hotel, and once on the rooftop, they climbed down. He was good, Murdock. Agile and quick.

 **Eddie said you did not have your sight** , Venom pointed out.

“Not like most people see,” Murdock acknowledged. He pulled off the red-leather mask, showing the same boyish face that Venom had seen before. “Venom, it’s very important that you don’t tell people about me.”

 **Who is there to tell?** Venom didn’t have friends, not the way Eddie had friends. There was Venom, and Eddie, and Darcy, and Darcy’s cousin Dan, and Dan’s girlfriend, who was also Eddie’s ex-girlfriend. And Tony. Most people didn’t realize Venom could think, or talk, or understand and weren’t engaging in random chit chat anyway. **Only ones who already know who we are.**

“Not even them,” Murdock insisted. “You, and Eddie. I can trust you, I hope. I helped you. Now you help me.”

**We won’t tell.**

“All right.” He paused. “Did you know you have a ninja sticking out of your back?”

* * *

_Present Day_

The problem was, Eddie decided, was that he really didn’t have any idea where Murdock could be found. He wasn’t in the lawyer’s office -- and tracking his scent had been worse than unproductive.

He hadn’t been at the small flat that was listed as belonging to the same lawyer. Although Venom had found traces of a woman’s scent there, as well as another man. 

Maybe Murdock was on a date. Or hanging out with friends. Stranger things had happened. A blind lawyer had friends. Why was that unusual?

**Because you don’t always have friends. Or dates.**

“Vee, we’re dating Tony Stark. We have dates.”

**But not friends.**

Okay, so that was mostly true. And painful. He had the team, and they were sort of like friends. Maybe he should try to arrange some sort of team bonding events. “Less bonded than we are, of course, big guy,” Eddie said. “But, I don’t know. Bowling.”

He tried and failed to imagine what Jenn Walters would be like if she went bowling. “On second thought, bowling might not be a good idea.”

**Water sports?**

“That doesn’t mean what you think it means, my love.”

**Swimming. We like swimming.**

“Then call it swimming,” Eddie suggested. “Water sports implies something else entirely to most people. Look--” Venom didn’t read his mind, not exactly. And there were lots of experiences to unearth. What they could do was sort of skim surface memories, especially when Eddie was dwelling on them.

Eddie had made some colossal mistakes in his time, Venom would find the right memory after a while. Eddie could feel the confusion, and then disgust, when he found the appropriate time period.

**And you complain when we want to eat someone.**

“I know,” Eddie said. “It’s horribly unfair. You’ll cope.”

 **We could have tater tots and chocolate** , Venom suggested.

Well, it wasn’t like Eddie wasn’t hungry, too. “Sure thing, love,” he said. “Millie’s?” The old diner -- part of a chain, and the one they frequented was in fact, Millie’s #11 -- they’d found wasn’t too far away from the Avengers’ office in the city. They didn’t have the tower in the city anymore, but it was foolish not to have branch offices all over the place. Like the superhero version of Amazon, or something.

And they had smothered tots as one of their platters. Vee loved fried potatoes just about any way people were willing to cook them, but the smothered tots with garlic and cheese and gravy and bacon was rapidly becoming their favorite.

 **Yes, Eddie, Millie’s is good.**

Millie’s was good, and Eddie ordered tots and waffles and chocolate silk pie for dessert. He pulled out his phone while he was waiting for food and shot off a few texts to Tony.

_That’s a no-go on my source Can’t find him._

_Don’t worry about it,_ was Tony’s response _. You coming home tonight?_

Home. That was another word that Eddie wasn’t even sure about. To him, home was still a ratty flat back in San Diego that still cost a ridiculous amount for being shitty. Tony had brought him to New York, invited him to live at the Avengers compound, and eventually had put an adjoining door to combine their living spaces.

But that-- well, it wasn’t home. 

Not exactly. 

In a way that Eddie couldn’t quite define.

 _Yeah._ Eddie moved his thumbs over his phone, tapping. _Keep the bed warm for us._

_In the lab Tarbaby._

_Anything new, or just poking the bots?_

There was a long pause before Tony came back with, _assuming you’re not jealous of my children-- Foster’s down here with me. These guys had metal we’ve never quite seen before. She’s trying to identify it. Might be a job for Odinson._

Venom responded to that with glee, pausing in their shoveling of tater tots into their mouth (Part of the other reason that Eddie liked Millie’s was that they could sit in the back, hoodie pulled up, and Venom would feed them while Eddie poked his phone) **We like Odinson. And Loki.**

“Loki’s a villain, love.”

**We can’t eat him. Therefore, he is not a villain.**

“The world’s not made up of good guys and death eaters,” Eddie muttered, texting Tony. _Vee wants to say hi to Loki._

_I’ll pass that along to Spear-and-Magic-Helmet if we happen to see them before you get back._

Venom dipped their handful (tentacle-full?) of tots into the drizzle of chocolate sauce on the dessert plate.

“Good thing I have a cast-iron stomach,” Eddie said, fond. 

Venom presented him with memories of vomiting the first double tray of tater tots.

“That doesn’t count, you ate out of the trash, too,” Eddie told him. They finished with even the last of the crumbs, and rather than wait for the server to come by again, Eddie just left a fifty on the table.

Sometimes he felt guilty about being Tony Stark’s boyfriend, and taking advantage of all the perks that came with -- such as having an allowance that Tony put into a bank account for him. He did it for all the Avengers, but Eddie sometimes felt they didn’t contribute as much to the team as the others.

Or maybe it was just his father’s puritanical work ethic echoing in his brain.

_We’re not losers. Not anymore._


	3. Chapter 3

Rhodey stormed into the compound like a man on a mission; the War Machine armor in fact taking several clanking steps out of it as he sprung free. Despite the fact that Tony -- watching this through one of the hundreds of monitors in the compound -- knew that Rhodey was probably going to come yell at him, he spared a moment of satisfaction to note that Rhodey could, in fact, spring out of the armor.

Every iteration of the prosthetic braces were better than the ones before, and if Rhodey would let Tony experiment with Extremis -- or even Symbiotic healing -- then everything would be fixed, and Rhodey would have his entire life back.

Well, except Venom wasn’t all that eager to heal up people, either. The Symbiote didn’t like the added responsibility, especially as Tony had found out that they’d almost killed Eddie by accident, because they didn’t know what people were supposed to look like from the inside, so they’d patterned Eddie after the inside of their first host.

It had gone less than well.

But that was all done now, the future to look forward to, and why was everyone being so difficult about it?

“Tony?”

“You bellowed, my dulcet darling?”

“I ain’t even started to bellow,” Rhodey complained. “But, since I do, in fact, have your attention now for the next few minutes until you get distracted-- there’s an issue you might want to look at with the Renegades.”

“I thought we were ignoring them,” Tony said, feeling his stomach sink somewhere around his ankles. “And don’t call them Renegades, that makes them sound cooler than we are.”

“What do you want me to call them?”

“Assholes?”

“Tony, I can’t put Assholes on official correspondence.”

“I don’t see why not,” Tony said. “Someone put ‘displays compulsive behavior, prone to self-destructive tendencies and textbook narcissism’ in an official report to SHIELD. I don’t see why we can’t call them assholes. A-Team maybe. Captain American Asshole and his band of bitch babies.”

“Sure, the A-Team. We can call them that.”

“I love it when a plan comes together.” Tony smirked. “Now that that’s settled, what did they do?”

“Captain A is calling out the United States on fostering a terrorist group,” Rhodey said.

“Are we? I don’t see that as being particularly unlikely, all things considered,” Tony responded.

“I mean, yes and no. The Watchdogs are a credible threat.” Rhodey flicked up a display screen off his wrist. A man in a dog-mask (that was really uncreative and ugly, Tony decided, no sense of style at all) was snarling at the screen. “The government is keeping secrets, things we don't know until cities fall out of the sky. The Avengers, more like them every day, protected, hidden. Not anymore! We want this information released, a list of who they are, where they are or you will have war on your hands. We are the Watchdogs.”

“Okay, I agree that this is a credible threat,” Tony said. “Although I have to say, I’ve been as open and transparent as possible since this whole superhero thing started.”

“No one’s blaming you,” Rhodey said,

“I sense a but coming.”

“But-- this is the sort of situation the Avengers were founded to deal with. Rogers is threatening to get personally involved without authorization. So--”

“Right. UN wants us to take care of it before Captain Spangles starts wrecking the room.”

“Pretty much, yes. And not just the A-team, although threats have been specifically made against Maximoff, Barnes, and Rogers, but also Josef Sokolov. Along with a long list of inhumans and mutants. The world is getting stranger every day, and no one likes change. The girl who can grow an extra eyeball in her forehead isn’t hurting anyone, but people -- regular, vanilla humans -- are going to want to bash her brains in for it. People are lashing out. They’re scared.”

“And why I--” Tony cut himself off. There was no point in screaming that Steve should have just signed the damn Accords. These Watchdogs were small potatoes. Dangerous, individually and collectively, but when it came right down to where the bullet met the bone, the threat was still up and out.

And it was coming.

Tony had no doubt about that.

“All right, I’m gonna hope you have some suggestions, because I am big picture stuff, and this is tiny little microscope snapshots,” Tony said. “Assemble the Avengers for a meet up in a few days, we’ll start poking at this.”

“I know you want to keep training for the big time, Tones, but if we don’t get things fixed here on earth, an alien army is going to be the least of our problems. We need something here to protect.”

“Right,” Tony said. “So, I’m going to do something really stupid, and see if I can’t open a conference bridge with the Good Captain. I doubt it’ll go well, but at least I will have tried, right?”

“I’ll send your boy to come rescue you as soon as he gets back,” Rhodey said.

“Yeah, great, and follow up with Jenn and Jane on those sleestaks we threw in the slammer the other day. I think there’s a few of them that haven’t killed themselves yet. Much as I wish that would save us the trouble, it really won’t.”

“You’re the boss,” Rhodey said.

“Slander and lies,” Tony retorted. “Love you platypus.”

***

“Strangely enough, basic math is something I can do,” Tony said. “One hundred and ninety seven countries in the world, one hundred and seventeen of them don’t want you inside their borders. But that still leaves a lot of the world for you to run around in. I get that, you guys are comfortable wherever you are. I’m not asking you to come in out of the rain.”

Eddie wondered if Rogers knew how upset the conversation was making Tony. Tony was still smiling, doing the Stark razzle-dazzle, trying to compromise. He was a good businessman and a superlative liar.

But Eddie could tell.

**We can tell.**

“Hey there, hon,” Eddie said, draping himself around Tony’s shoulders like a scarf. “What’s going-- oh, hello there Nomad.” 

“What’s that?”

“Nomad--” Eddie said, addressing his comments to Tony. “Something the papers started to call Rogers here after he went rogue. Because he’s not really Captain America anymore, is he?”

Venom popped a tentacle out of Eddie’s back, growing eyes and teeth and inspecting the uneaten sandwich on Tony’s desk. **Do we know him?**

“Steve, Eddie and Venom, members of the New Avengers,” Tony said, waving a hand at them. “You both know Steve Rogers by reputation.”

“I’m not even surprised,” Rogers said, pointedly ignoring Eddie and Vemon. “What do you want, Tony?”

“I want you to communicate with me, with us, with the New Avengers. On any steps you might take against these terrorists known as the Watchdogs. My concern at the moment is that -- this is one of our priorities, and we have UN permission to conduct investigations and possible arrests -- we might trip over each other. I don’t want to end up in another shooting match.”

“The Watchdogs are after us. It is our problem to handle,” Maximoff said, leaning around Roger’s shoulder. “You should let us handle them.”

“Collateral damage is everyone’s problem,” Tony said. “All I want is to be kept in the loop. To know where you are, so we don’t step on your toes.”

“To report our location to people like Ross. We will not have you using that information with impunity,” Maximoff added. “No, thank you. You can let us know where you are going to be.”

**They don’t trust him** , Venom pointed out, his voice as loud as a shout inside Eddie’s brain, but Tony didn’t even twitch. 

“Trust is thin on the ground,” Eddie murmured in Tony’s ear. “If you tell them we’re headed out to deal with Watchdogs, and then they show up--”

“Collusion,” Tony said with a sigh. “We can’t keep you posted on our targeted hotspots unless you promise you’re going to let us handle it. We stay out of your way, you stay out of ours.”

“You know how I feel about that,” Rogers said. “I can’t stand by.”

“And I can’t keep you out of prison if you insist on showing up to cause a scene,” Tony retorted. “I want-- Damn it, Steve, I’m trying to help you!”

“You had your chance to help,” Rogers said. “You chose to sign the Accords.”

“I’m not the enemy,” Tony said.

“You’re sitting at his table,” Rogers replied. “That makes you too much of a risk. You can’t make a deal with Ross. You think you can sit at his table and compromise with someone like that. You can’t. In the end, you’re going to be in a cell and I’m going to have warned you that it’s coming.”

**He will not.**

“Right, this is going nowhere. I’ll give you any information if I find something out that might help you. Try, once in a while, to consider that I’m not an idiot, and despite what everyone thinks, I almost always know exactly what I’m doing.”

Tony snapped the conference bridge closed. “It’s like arguing with a brick wall,” he said. “I hope your day went better, love.”

“Unproductive, but not quite as frustrating, sounds like,” Eddie said. “It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

“Optimist,” Tony accused, but he leaned backward against Eddie and tipped his head to claim a kiss.

“Hey, two years ago, I was so far down the well, I couldn’t even think I’d ever see sunlight again,” Eddie said. “Things turn around. It’s a big planet. Hopefully we won’t bump into your ex, and everything’ll go smooth.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No, but it sounds good?” Eddie laughed and Venom pushed a few more tendrils out, rubbing the tension out of Tony’s neck. “It’ll probably be a cluster-fuck of amazingly god-like proportions. But we’ll handle it, okay? I’m gonna take care of you, and you’ll take care of me.”

**And we will take care of you both.**

“And Venom will kick everyone’s ass who pisses them off, so, we’re good.”

“I’ll let you take care of me,” Tony said, and that came out sounding like a delicious promise.

“That sounds good. Come to bed, lover,” Eddie said. “We can deal with all this shit later. I promise, it ain’t going anywhere.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Tony scowled at the blank monitor, and then let Venom slide a tendril around Tony’s back. “Bed. Yes. Take me there, and then, just take me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is mostly the smutty shower scene. Skip it when they get to the bathroom if that's not your thing. Otherwise: you're welcome

Seeing the look on Rogers’ face when Eddie came into the room was some sort of delicious revenge. Tony knew that Cap knew Eddie was Tony’s boyfriend. He had to know that. But seeing them together, even for just a split second. Well, the good Captain seemed… was it unfair to hope for jealousy?

Tony wasn’t above petty spite. And it wasn’t like he didn’t love Eddie and Venom. So why not piss off the Captain about something he really couldn’t complain about while Tony was at it? Win-win-win.

And it wasn’t like Tony didn’t _like_ having sex with his boyfriends. He _loved_ having sex with his boyfriends. Or was that boyfriend and alienfriend? Tony wasn’t sure. Although Venom seemed to prefer they/them pronouns, Tony wasn’t really sure the alien was male, either. Certainly not by human definitions.

 **And we can birth children** , Venom said, picking up Tony’s thoughts the way they so often did.

“Wait, what?” Because while Venom may not have been human-defined male, they certainly didn’t seem _female_. Venom… simply was Venom.

 **Children,** Venom repeated. **We have them.**

“Like, right now?” Eddie asked. “Is some slithery purple alien goo going to come demand child support?”

 **We have not had any yet. But the potential exists.**

“That’s probably good,” Tony said. “I mean, I like this--” he gestured, trying to indicate Eddie and Venom and the space between them. “--and children are not out of the question, or a deal-breaker, but I think we’d want to know a lot more about how the laws are going to work, and if the baby will need a host, and what the ethical questions might be.”

 **We can fix a baby,** Venom said, thoughtfully. **The children would need hosts. Bargains… can be made.**

“You say that, and it might even be true, but then people who are completely uninvolved and unaffected are going to get their knickers in a twist,” Tony said.

“Much as this is a great brunch conversation,” Eddie said, “can we get back to the matter at hand-- is babies something that’s going to happen soon? And if yes, is there something we can do to prevent that?”

**Children will happen when we are ready. We are not… ready now.**

“Great,” Eddie said, “because I, for one, would like to have sex, note that we have been having sex, and further note, we’ve not been wearing any alien rubbers. I just want that all on the table, right now.”

 **We will keep you both informed,** Venom said primly, and Tony laughed, because it was such a different sort of attitude on their favorite alien parasite.

“That’s all we’re asking, big guy,” Tony said, leaning affectionately into the tendril that was supporting him. “No surprises.”

Friday had already prepped the elevator for them, and so it was only a few moments from the conference rooms and up to their bedroom. Cap was not allowed; not in person, not even as a call-image, and not as a thought, so Tony checked his brain at the door. “You two want a shower before we get started, or after we’re all a mess?”

“Now--” Eddie said, at the same time Venom said **After**.

“Both it is, then,” Tony said, rubbing his hands together. “It’s good. I want to get Cap cooties off my skin anyway.”

 **He did not touch you,** Venom protested **. How do you have cooties?**

“Don’t care,” Eddie said. “No Steve, salty or otherwise, in the bedroom, that’s the rule. Okay, off with the clothes then.”

Eddie was such a hedonist, especially for someone who rarely wore clothing any more constricting or fashionable than a sweatshirt, but he did seem to like standing there while Venom sprouted any number of tendrils to remove the clothes. Kind of like the second generation car wash, Tony thought, that had taken all the suit pieces off while Tony strolled down the ramp.

Venom was talented at multitasking, so Tony just moved his arms up and let the symbiote do as they wanted, stripping both humans down and sorting the laundry while they were at it.

 **We like stacks of things** , Venom said.

Eddie gave a shudder and shared one of those uniquely human moments with Tony, a flash of eye and a very slight head shake that said, as clearly as if he’d spoken out loud. _Do not ask about that._

So, for once in his life, Tony did the smart thing. He didn’t ask.

The three of them made their way into the shower. Tony always had the best showers. Even when he couldn’t take one, when it was bird-baths in the sink, he had a good shower.

Now he was better about showering, he didn’t have very many flashbacks to being held by the hair and shoved face-first into water. He still didn’t like getting water splashed directly on his face, and both of his lovers knew that. His showerhead was set a little lower in the wall so that he could enjoy the spray and not get too tense. Tipping his head all the way back to get his hair wet, and Venom ran tendrils through it, like the limbs of some many legged octopus. Felt good. Great, even, and Tony moaned in appreciation.

“If you ever get bored with us, you could make a fortune as a hairstylist,” Tony joked.

 **We probably won’t get bored,** Venom said, voice echoing oddly in the shower. Tony never really knew when Venom was talking outloud or not-- when they were a mass of tendrils, it didn’t seem like the symbiote should have enough lung power to be as loud as they were. 

“Come here, you,” Eddie said, dragging Tony up against him. The two of them leaned against each other, codependency at its finest, and let Venom scrub them off, hold them up.

Venom babied them both, excessively. Which was good, because honestly, neither Tony nor Eddie were what normal people would call fully functional. Tony only managed because he paid a lot of people a lot of money to keep his life going smoothly.

Eddie-- well, until Venom came around, Eddie had been circling the drain. 

Lost his job, lost the girlfriend who was keeping him going, lived in a crappy apartment and was barely paying the bills.

Exactly, Tony thought, where he would be if he wasn’t a billionaire. Which was kind of pathetic, really. “Sometimes I think I should give up my fortune and go live in a little log cabin by a lake.”

“You’d be surprised how expensive living is,” Eddie said. “Especially when you don’t have money. Keep the billions. But I’m with you on the cabin by the lake idea. Get some fruit-bearing trees and sheep -- or an alpaca or something -- and shop at the farmer’s market. Venom can have their own beehive.”

 **Now _that_ sounds boring**, Venom said. 

“No bucolic life for you, got it, big guy,” Tony said. “What does sound interesting? We should plan a vacation.”

**Base jumping.**

“No, you know how I feel about heights. Extreme skiing,” Eddie said.

**Pussy.**

“No, no snow,” Tony protested. “We did snow last vacation.”

**That was not a vacation.**

“Shows what you know,” Tony said.

Eddie made a soft, needy sound, and Venom’s tendrils were snaking around Eddie’s legs and up his thighs, at the same time curling around Tony’s biceps, the tip ends teasing at nipples going suddenly erect. **This is not boring.**

“Glad to hear it,” Eddie said, and he leaned back into Venom, absolute trust that Venom wouldn’t let him slip or fall, even though Venom was mostly made up of tentacles slightly larger than lasagna noodles, and of about the same consistency.

Lasagna noodles with erotic intent. Tony was never quite as trusting, he preferred to go down on his own knees, or lean against the wall. It wasn’t that he thought Venom would drop him, but at the same time, Tony had been let down one too many times already.

 **One day,** Venom whispered, and this time Tony knew for certain that Venom was speaking directly to him, as opposed to outloud, **one day, you will give it all to us.**

 _Yeah, okay, Spaghetti O's_ , Tony thought. _One day._

Not today, but that was okay. Tony did the best he could with what he had, and that was often good enough.Venom kept tendrils wrapped around them both; shower sex was dangerous, but with Venom, pretty much everywhere was solid ground. A thicker tentacle, vaguely penis-shaped, although it didn’t really serve that function, prodded at Tony’s mouth. 

The best way to get inside Tony’s head, to taste his endorphins, and to feel everything that he felt was through the receptors in Tony’s tongue, the nerve endings in his cheek. Tony gave Venom blowjobs, not because Venom got off on it, but because that was how Tony would. And Tony getting off meant Venom could feel it, participate in it.

 _What’s that like for you_ , Tony wondered. He couldn’t talk now if he wanted to, Venom’s tendril-cock had filled up his mouth, was nudging against the back of his throat, all thick, velvet-hard and throbbing. Tears fluttered on the edges of Tony’s lashes and were washed away by the gentle mist of the shower spray. 

**Like this.**

A tendril nudged at Tony’s ear, slithered inside. Visions of a dozen different science fiction movies flooded Tony’s brain and he stiffened in reflexive fear, before--

**Shhhh, we will show you.**

Six months of relationship with Venom and Eddie, and Tony still didn’t know how the symbiotes worked, although he did know it was not a complete merging. Eddie and Venom were not the same; they worked together, were bound together, but Venom could leave. They usually chose not to -- Eddie was the best host, Venom would declare.

But Tony wasn’t sure how he knew -- that these thoughts, these feelings, were not Venom at all. They were Eddie.

The way Eddie loved Venom, utterly, completely. Trusted them without a doubt. 

And Tony couldn’t even be jealous, because like a flame, Eddie loved Tony. The same. Utterly, completely. Eddie had no doubts. He knew Tony was there for him, holding him up, keeping him stable.

Which didn’t even begin to cover it. Tony would have died for Eddie, for Venom, if it was required, done it easily and gladly with no regrets.

But he knew, Tony knew, that eventually, Tony was going to let Eddie down. He was going to let Venom down.

A shiver of self-loathing and agony struck him, but then Venom and Eddie both focused their love on him.

**We would not love you if you weren’t worthy.**

Venom pulled them both closer together, and Eddie’s hand went to brush over Tony’s cock. He could feel it, through his own skin, and through Eddie’s skin. Giving and receiving at the same time. Could feel the way Eddie relished that contact, the way he noticed Tony’s eyes dilate, the way Tony shivered involuntarily under Eddie’s touch. The surge of pride, that Eddie could do this to Tony Stark, that he was not only allowed, but eagerly encouraged. Eddie knew that he was nothing, that he wasn’t worthy. Venom called him a loser and that wasn’t a lie. Eddie had always been last, he’d been a liar, he’d been a cheat.

It was only when he found Venom that he became worth anything. Enough so even someone like Tony Stark could find him appealing.

There was something more naked and vulnerablel about it than any sex had ever been before. Stripped bare of all his defenses, shown, utterly, to someone else.

And to know that those people still found him _worthy_.

If Tony was weeping, the shower washed it away. 

And his lovers knew it. And they loved him anyway.

“You think it’s just you, but it’s not,” Eddie said. “We all got our baggage. We all got things about us we wanna change.”

**Not us. We are perfect.**

“Course you are,” Eddie teased. But then it was all bodies, all skin against skin, symbiote slithering around him, teasing and touching and bringing him pleasure.

Tony could feel what Eddie was feeling, through Venom. A manipulation of chemicals, a sharing of hormones, a binding of what made them who they were. Humans were just watery bags of chemicals. 

It was profound and sacred and commonplace. An everyday miracle.

Love.

Tony didn’t realize what Venom was doing until he could barely see-- stretching out the orgasm. A typical male orgasm usually lasted, Tony knew, between five and ten seconds in actual physical time, even if it usually seemed longer.

But Venom was doing something to him, keeping him there. Not on the edge, but over it, freefall into bliss, and Eddie was right there by his side.

**Love.**

By the time Tony’s world shattered, he thought, maybe, Venom had kept them in that state for almost a minute. His heart rate was through the roof; dizzy from it, lungs taking huge gasps of air. He was shaking, trembling bone deep.

“Wow,” Tony said, when he could talk again. Venom had, somewhere in there, moved them to the bed, wet skin being slowly dried by the sheets and a handful of towels.

“Yeah, tell me about it. Vee did that to me for five minutes one time, and then they had to fix everything that they broke.”

 **We didn’t know what would happen.** Venom sounded vaguely ashamed.

“It’s all good,” Eddie said, patting the goo that surrounded them. “Everyone wants to go blind from sex, at least once. Life goals.”

“Mood,” Tony said, and Eddie weakly thwapped him with a pillow. 

“Don’t try to talk like you’re nineteen.”

**Big mood.**


	5. Chapter 5

Tony had been emotionally wrung out, after sex and such intimate sharing. Which meant he was actually sleeping, sprawled out over their larger than king-sized bed like some sort of offering to a pagen god. Beautiful as a broken angel.

**Poetic gibberish.**

Eddie managed a shrug and a twist of his lip. “I love him, Vee,” he said.

But Eddie was a little more used to Vee’s methods of pleasure -- they’d been very gradually introducing them to Tony, in hopes of not scaring him off. Or hurting him. Tony didn’t worry very much about his own well-being, which meant Eddie had to do it for him.

Eddie was not used to responsibility; he couldn’t even take care of Anne’s cat, back when they were dating, and Anne’s cat had yowled when he wasn’t being fed. Tony didn’t even _notice_ if he didn’t eat.

So, while Tony was dead to the world, Eddie had those thoughts circling around in his head.

And whenever Eddie worried, Vee wanted to eat something.

Well, Vee wanted to eat most of the time _anyway_ , so using worry was just another excuse.

**It’s not like we will get fat.**

Walking around helped Eddie think, too. Kept him from falling down the rabbit hole of social media, or wikipedia. “Let’s go out and get a taco.”

He left a note for Tony -- how prosaic, he could almost hear his boyfriend laughing about it -- and pulled on his jeans and his old hoodie. Tony had tried a few times to get Eddie to dress ritzy, but Eddie preferred his sweats and lounge clothing. He had, however, let Tony buy him a really expensive, and comfortable, pair of sneakers.

So, being Tony, he’d gotten a pair in every color.

Eddie mostly wore the grey ones.

Of course, the other reason why Eddie wore the hoodie was because it had a kangaroo pocket and after buying a dozen tacos from a bodega, he could slide several of them in there and Venom could eat them without anyone being the wiser.

Eddie himself ate two tacos the regular way.

“Do you ever chew quietly?” someone complained. Venom took a whiff of air and then relaxed, seeping silently inside Eddie’s bones like a restless shadow. “I can hear you halfway across the city.”

“That’s because you’re cool and all suped up and stuff,” Eddie said. He didn’t startle as much as he used to, either. Side effect of hanging out with the Avengers, he guessed. Two years ago, he would have had a fucking heart attack and Matt goddamn Murdock would have been paying his medical bills.

Well, probably not. For a lawyer, Murdock wasn’t exactly what you’d call well off. He and his partner had a shitty office, they did mostly charity work for chicken scratch (sometimes, literally, even, chickens) and Murdock had, as far as the world knew, only the one suit.

In truth, he had two, but most of the world didn’t know that Matt Murdock and Daredevil were the same person. Probably because people were stupid. 

How many blind ninjas do there have to be in a city before someone puts 3 and 5 together to get the square root of four?

**Your metaphor needs work** , Venom grumbled.

“My hearing is good,” Murdock said, shifting just enough in his shadow that Eddie could see him. “But not good enough to hear what Brock is thinking.”

“You assume I think,” Eddie snapped, before realizing what he’d said.

**Self burn.**

“Learning to fit in, are we?” Murdock said. He was smiling, although it was hard to tell behind the devil’s mask he wore. “What have you two been doing, haunting around my streets?”

“Looking for you,” Eddie said.

“Good job,” Murdock said. “You found me.”

**You found us.**

“Vee’s not wrong,” Eddie said. “Which means you want something from _us_ \--”

Murdock shifted a little uncomfortably. Eddie probably wouldn’t even have noticed, except that Venom was a hunter, and Venom noticed _everything_. Although Eddie’s instincts were pretty good.

Murdock gave a quick, half-nod. “The whole double life thing is exhausting,” he admitted. “And it’s worse now. I have friends that need to be protected.”

“Do they know?”

“Foggy knows. Karen suspects. But it’s Karen that I’m worried about,” Murdock said. “You know her, Karen Paige?”

Eddie nodded. “Good investigator.”

“She used to be our secretary,” Matt told him. “She’s gotten involved in some shady shit that she really should have stayed away from. It put her right in the line of fire.”

“Birds of a feather, man,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“You like her,” Eddie said. “Which means she’s like you-- good head on her shoulders and a desire to help. You’re not going to keep her out of trouble. She’ll go looking for that shit with a camera and a tape recorder.”

“Karen’s good people,” Murdock said. “She doesn’t deserve to be killed for it.”

**Most people don’t deserve what happens to them.**

“Philosophy for beyond the stars, man, what can you do?”

“Protect her,” Murdock said. “Even if she doesn’t want me to.”

“Which is where you need us,” Eddie theorized. “Because you need to be Murdock around her sometimes and not get her suspicions up?”

“Got it in one,” Murdock said and gave him a smile like a razer. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

**That would be difficult.**

“Is it like having someone else in your head all the time?” Murdock wondered.

“They blend in with the rest of the voices in my head that hate me,” Eddie said.

**We don’t hate you. You are a loser, but you are _our_ loser.**

“You two are like being back in grade school,” Murdock said. “All right, you take some time to look after Karen -- since you’re in New York these days anyway -- and I’ll help you with whatever your issue is.”

**You don’t even want to hear it first?**

“Not really,” Murdock said. “Karen’s safety is worth everything to me.”

“Great, tell us about the Hand.”

Eddie wished he had a camera. Watching Daredevil fall off a wall had to be a first in the history of humanity.

“ _Why_?”

“We ran into some assholes recently who claimed the Hand wasn’t going to tolerate our presence anymore or some such bravado. Right before he slit his own throat and ended up making us all look like the extras in _Carrie_.”

Murdock tipped his head in Eddie’s direction, face etched with exasperation. “Right, you haven’t seen it. Covered in blood. It was _gross_.”

**And a waste of food.**

“They were supposed to be dead,” Murdock said. “We killed-- Jesus, we killed a lot of them.”

“The thing is, with assholes? They never stay dead,” Eddie said, philosophically. “Remember back in the 90s, when killing Nazis was a good thing? Now we’re supposed to give them a platform to talk.”

“The Hand were -- or maybe still are -- a sect of outcast warriors who use illegally gained monies to fund their goals. They seek the bones of dragons.”

“What?”

“Elite ninjas drug-dealers who want to live forever,” Murdock said. 

“Do they?”

“They’re hard to kill,” Murdock said. “And I’ve seen them come back from the dead a few times. I thought we’d eliminated the last source of their resurrection drug.” 

“Resurrection drug?”

“Well, I don’t have all the details,” Murdock said. “The Hand doesn’t really take me into their confidence, but-- did you know there were dragons on Earth, once?”

“Yeah, I guess I’d believe anything, these days.” Eddie shrugged. He was sharing his body with a space parasite, why would he even blink at the possibility of dragons, which were in literally every race’s literature. He was pretty sure vampires were real, too.

“What little I understand,” Murdock said, “and it’s not much. You want the history of dragons, take it up with Danny Rand. When a dragon dies, its body is full of energy. Chi. Which settles in the bones. The bones of a dragon are powerful, and from them, the Hand made an elixir which gave them eternal life. They’ve been around for-fucking-ever.”

“So?”

“So, last year, we stopped them from collecting another dragon skeleton, this one under New York,” Murdock said. “The leaders were all killed, and no resurrection drug, so… theoretically, no more Hand.”

“You think these guys who we were dealing with are just the dregs left over? Even Tony didn’t think they were much, and you know how excitable he gets.”

“Never met Stark,” Murdock said. “Not in an official superhero to superhero capacity.”

“I can arrange an introduction, if you want,” Eddie said. “Although really, I kinda like having sources outside of the Avengers. Makes me look good. Clever.”

Venom didn’t even have to say anything. Murdock’s dry look was plenty.

“I have my own reasons to stay a solo act,” Murdock said. “That said, maybe an introduction wouldn’t go amiss. I’d like to talk with the survivors of the Hand. Get a feel for what’s going on--”

**We don’t think you’ll need to do that.**

“Why not?”

**Because they are here.**

Eddie barely had time to be shocked that Venom had heard them, but Murdock had not, before he was suiting up. There was no point in being subtle. These Hand assholes already knew the score. Venom swallowed him up, wrapping a comforting, and deadly, blanket around himself. There were times, huddled inside Venom, knowing very little could hurt him, knowing he’d never, ever be alone again, that he was returned to the child he’d once been, praying that someone could help him, protect him.

**We will always protect you.**

“I’ve got low,” Murdock -- no, he was all the way DareDevil now, rough voice and blank expression -- said. He snapped his signature batons out of his holster and jumped into the fray without waiting.

Probably smart. Ninjas they could see in front of them generally meant ninjas they couldn’t see somewhere else.

Venom finished closing over Eddie’s face, and then his vision became the same as the symbiote’s, spotting prey with ease.

**Food.**

_Yeah, sure, go ahead and eat the ninjas, love. Just save a few for Murdock to question._

Working together, letting Venom’s killer instinct be guided by human wit, the two of them were barely contained, a whirlwind of destruction and death.

Eddie let himself be subsumed by Venom’s nature, biting, clawing, throwing. He was more animal than human. Moving, killing, being. 

**Living.**

“Look out--” Murdock didn’t yell so much as he grunted emphatically, but they got the picture. Mostly. Venom whirled around to see what had the ninja-lawyer-vigilante so concerned. Saw a man pointing a gun at them. Big deal. What were guns to symbiote flesh?

_Wait, wait, pal, that--_

Gun was strange, more like a compact bullhorn. Bullhorn, sound waves-- Eddie yanked at Venom’s consciousness. **RUN!**

Too late, the weapon went off. Sonic waves filled the air, high-pitched and deadly to Venom, who shrieked, clapping oversized hands at their head.

Murdock went down in a heap, screaming, his nose bleeding.

Venom peeled off, unable to maintain the protective armor around Eddie anymore.

“Hah, you’re just a human under all that, aren’t you?”

The ninja raised a weapon, some staff or stick, and struck Eddie in the temple.

The world went away.


	6. Chapter 6

The fox had never been entirely sure how he’d gotten into the humans’ cluster den. He had been chasing a fat little mouse, and suddenly the whole world had changed from thick trees and dense grasses to nests of humans with their hard sides and the creatures that carried humans back and forth.

Terrifying, and yet, the whole place had smelled of food. Shiny hollow rocks filled with it. Squirrels and rats and rabbits in the small stretches of grass and trees. A fox could live well. If a fox was careful, and clever.

The gnawing of his ribs had stopped and he grew sleek and plump with the unexpected bounty. Soon he would try to make his way back to the forest and find a mate, and have kits.

A tantalizing smell reached his nostrils and the fox slunk off in that direction. There wasn’t much time until day and he would return to the human nest where he made his own den, a scratched out hollow under the side. The humans didn’t seem interested in eating fox, or even harming fox. He wasn’t sure they noticed him at all. 

Humans were incomprehensible, really.

The fox snagged its prize; a partly eaten thing that humans fed from; thick yeasty grain and sharp meat with tangy flavors and a bunch of potato pieces. 

He dragged it a little away from the place he’d found it, nesting in between two of the strange human rocks, where he’d be partially protected while he ate.

**We need your help.**

The fox didn’t understand humans or squirrels or rabbits. He didn’t speak to crows or comprehend the thoughts of pigeons. When he saw other foxes, he knew their thoughts, basic and primal as his own.

But this… this he understood as well as if they were his own thoughts.

His heart pounded, lungs suddenly filling with air. He bunched his legs, ready to run and leave the food behind. There would always be more food.

**We won’t hurt you. You are fast and strong and sneaky. You will do perfectly well.**

The fox managed to get out a sharp, yipping sound of warning and terror…

\-- and then he was suddenly silent, listening, intently, to the voice in his head. To the Other, which had become him, had become _them_.

**Come on, Ride, let’s run.**

The fox was stronger, smarter, more powerful. There had never been such a fox before in the tale of the world. Strange limbs pulsed out of his sides, grasping the human things, pulling them along together, faster even than a fox could run _Walls_ and _cars_ and _light poles_ \-- and the fox knew these words. Understood, at last, what they were for, and why they existed.

He understood -- they, understood.

Understanding made him something more than a fox. Something greater and more wonderful than he had been before.

**We are together.**

_What --_ and the fox knew words _\-- what are we?_

**We are Venom.**

* * *

Tony did not know a lot about wildlife -- on his best days, he didn’t think about animals more than once or twice, and that was usually if Parker happened to snapchat him a cute picture of a puppy or something. But he did know that foxes generally could not fly.

And therefore, a fox should not be up on the landing gantry, pawing at the door, trying to come in.

He paused, not entirely certain that he shouldn’t call some sort of alert-- but hell, it was just a fox.

“Friday, if the fox eats me, please make sure it’s not on Fox News, okay?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“I believe I deserve an explana--” Tony got out as he was opening the gantry door, and then, there was a black gleam in the fox’s eyes, and--

Tony got a mouthful of Venom.

**He’s gone, Eddie is gone, they took our Eddie… Eddie Eddie Eddie, they hurt us--**

“Woah, woah, woah, hey, Jello-mold, come on, back down, ease up. I can’t understand you if you’re yelling like that,” Tony managed, staggering. Or he would have staggered, perhaps even fallen. He could feel his body _wanting_ to fall down, but Venom had stopped that right in its tracks. Venom very seldom inhabited Tony’s body, usually it was just a tendril or two, and often only during intimate moments, although the symbiote had taken over once to heal Tony of his wounds, and sort of accidentally restored him to full functionality including repairing the arc-reactor’s damage.

But it wasn’t an every day sort of thing, not at all, and Tony wondered, in between feeling like he was a puppet on a string, and also like he was high on the best heroin ever, how Eddie managed it regularly without going insane.

Or having an embolism.

**They took EDDIE.**

“Okay, okay, I’m getting there, Green Eggs and Slam, but slow down, tell me what happened?”

Rather than speaking the words, Tony got a high-speed internet download, full of images and feelings and terror and blood and violence.

And then-- the sound.

Loud enough even in Venom’s memory, that it buzzed painfully along their nerves. Loud enough that Tony struggled to raise his arms to clap them over his ears. Didn’t do any good, but the action was instinct.

**They took EDDIE.**

Venom was filled with rage, fear, anxiety, the compulsion to act and the paralyzation of not knowing what to do. They had a goal -- get to Tony. Now that it was met, Venom didn’t know what to do, and their panic was infecting Tony like a drug.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Tony said, putting his hands out as if to balance himself. Venom didn’t need help with balance, but they allowed the motion. Or, perhaps, they’d never been counteracting it, and it was Tony who was frozen with shock.

“Okay. Better. They have Eddie. What do we know? Everything, Vee. Details. Show me what you saw -- you can skip the noise for the moment. I want to look at their clothes, where they went, where they came from, if they had a getaway vehicle. Friday, pull up street cams-- where were you-- there we are, west 38th and Ninth. What the hell were you doing over there?”

“We live to serve,” Friday said, just a little sarcastic, and Tony rolled his eyes at her. 

“Please?”

“Of course, boss.”

Tony divided his attention between what Venom was showing and what information Friday was pulling up on the cameras.

It was harder than he would have thought. Tony was a master multitasker, but Venom took up so much space in his head.

“How does Eddie do this and not go crazy,” Tony wondered.

 **EDDIE does not have so many thoughts. You are like** \-- a brief image of a lottery pingpong machine. **How do you do this and not go crazy?**

“News for you, lover,” Tony said. “I am as crazy as a bag of cats.”

**Yummy.**

At least that was back to normal. Venom thinking about food. 

“So who’s this dude--” Tony indicated a smudge on the video feed, and then matched it up with Venom’s memory. Red armor, fighting with some sort of stick and chain. Reverse ninja dude.

**DareDevil.**

Tony got a feeling of hiding, of stillness, of Venom trying to--

“Are you keeping secrets?”

**Need to know. And you don’t need to know.**

Right. “Vee?”

**We know who he is, under the mask. You don’t need to know.**

“Ah, another Spider-kid sitch, got it. I won’t pry, but I might need to talk to this guy. And these-- ninja motherfuckers, they’re the Hand. Like Hang up to Dry was talking about right before he offed himself into the wireworks movie in the sky?”

**We assume so. They did not make introductions.**

“Hey boss,” Friday said. “I found where they went underground.”

“Oh, _delightful_ ,” Tony said. He hated being underground, and Friday meant literally, because the fucking pajama patrol was crawling into the sewer system. Eddie was, apparently, still alive, and on some sort of canvas-webbing backpack contraption. The ninja carrying him didn’t seem overburdened by the weight.

**We are going to go get Eddie.**

It wasn’t a question. Venom would settle for nothing less than tearing the city down to the bedrock if they had to.

“We’re going to go get Eddie,” Tony said. “Which means you need to learn how to suit up. Do not break my armor, it will make me cross.”

**And we won’t like you if you’re cross.**

* * *

Venom knew that Murdock wasn’t that far away. They could smell the man. Injured, and badly, but determined.

He didn’t seem to want to be seen, sneaking along behind Tony as they crossed town toward the manhole cover where Eddie was last seen on camera.

Venom was torn between their promise to Eddie not to talk about Murdock, about his secret identity. They weren’t sure if mentioning to Tony that Murdock was there counted.

Venom wasn’t good at keeping secrets from a host; it involved actively not thinking about something, and when Daredevil was not half a block behind them, it was hard not to think about it.

Tony, at least, didn’t know that Venom was, in fact, actively thwarting him, so he wasn’t asking questions.

But soon it was going to be too much.

**Stop right there.**

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin, which might have been amusing, since he was wearing the armor at the time, and the armor was this hard, unmalleable thing that encased them. Venom didn’t like it, but there were a lot of things Venom didn’t like that they were having to get used to.

“Me?”

“No,” Murdock said, stepping out of the shadows. “They mean me.”

Venom slithered a tendril out and opened the faceplate to Tony’s armor, reaching out to touch Murdock’s arm. To give the man all credit due, he didn’t even flinch. “I’ve been following you for six blocks. That armor is not inconspicuous.”

“Yeah, pal, well, I have a license to commit heroics,” Tony snapped. “What do you got?”

Murdock held out a hand, and another ninja came out to join them, dressed in black with red accents. Her hair was hanging loose around her body and she bristled with weapons.

“I have Elektra,” he said. “Former Black Sky of the Hand.”

“I know where they are taking your friend,” she said in an accented voice. “And I know what they want.”


	7. Chapter 7

Eddie would have thought he would have broken easy.

He was the epitome of the exact kind of Millenial that Boomers hated; had two or three side-hustles, wore baggy pants and hoodies most of the time. He was always one minor accident away from being out on the streets. When given his druthers -- and sometimes even when he wasn’t -- he slept late, forgot to shower, paid his bills late when he paid them at all, and had a GoFundMe to try to get his cracked molar replaced.

He tended to comply with police demands, and then write scathing articles about brutality. He signed online petitions by the hundreds and boycotted Chik-fil-a but rarely went to an actual protest unless he was covering it for a news article. 

Tony had come along and made a lot of those things go away; the New Avengers had a comprehensive health care plan with zero deductible and fifteen dollar copays. As an Avenger, Eddie and Venom -- who were considered a team, and each of them paid _separately_ which seemed unheard of -- Eddie was drawing a paycheck that was so large as to be unbelievable. 

Still, Eddie had a cracked molar because going to the dentist wasn’t something he remembered to do. He spent money on frivolous things and had recently gotten a summons to small claims court for failure to pay his cable bill from back when he lived with Anne.

Eddie was trying. He was.

But, as Venom would have said, Eddie was a loser.

So, he’d expected to break early. As soon as he saw and understood his situation, he thought he’d be begging not to be hurt.

Venom wasn’t with him, and the emptiness in his head and heart was terrifying.

It wasn’t as if he’d never been separated from his symbiote, his partner, his mate, his love. But some of that was before -- before whatever was between them had blossomed into more, before Tony, before--

Just before.

Now the emptiness in his head was like a gutshot, painful and slowly killing him.

But he wasn’t going to tell them _anything_.

The cynical part of his brain; the one who told him that he didn’t deserve Venom or Tony, that he wasn’t an Avenger, that sounded remarkably like his father… that part kept saying that Eddie wasn’t talking because he didn’t understand the questions.

Which was sometimes a little true. He didn’t know anything about the Chaste, or the Substance, or anything about an Iron Fist. (True, there were two of them at the end of Iron Man’s arms, but Eddie got the impression that they meant a different person altogether.)

He certainly didn’t know anything about dragons.

But then they started asking him about the symbiotes.

They didn’t call Venom a symbiote. They didn’t seem to know what words Venom called themself.

They showed him little drawings, pictures of what looked like a stylized snake eating a very stylized person. Or bonding with it. _Shen_. They called it, and then looked at Eddie with dark expectation.

He knew what they meant. He still didn’t know why they wanted it. Eddie shook his head. When they insisted, he spat at them, and when they hurt him.

He endured.

He didn’t know-- 

Was Venom alive? If they were, where were they? Did these ninja-fuckers have them, held in some sort of glass cage like that horror show at Life Foundation? 

Did Tony know that Eddie and Venom were missing? How long would that take?

_How long will it take someone to notice you’re missing? To care? Do you think anyone will care?_

Shut up, Dad.

He hadn’t broken. Hadn’t told them anything. Although, knowing the way these things would go, he would, eventually, spill. Somewhat after they pulled his guts out and read his entrails like a fortune teller in a horror movie.

_Your life is a horror movie. Die with some dignity._

_I don’t want to die at all_ , Eddie thought desperately. He’d been one to joke “this job’ll kill you” “oh please”.

But he didn’t want to die. Not now. Now when he was so close to having his life in order, when he was doing something he could be proud of. He had a man that he loved, and that loved him back. He had Venom -- perfectly lost, dumpster fire symbiote.

He snapped his head up. “Fuck you.”

* * *

“They come,” Elektra said, in her too-formal voice, her eyes haunted by things that she had seen and done, “from beyond the stars. Once, they lived on Earth, in green fields and deep forests, but they have called many places home.”

Tony wasn’t sure that he believed in dragons, although all things considered, he was finding out more that some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. Thanks, Cate Blanchette and J. R. R. Tolkien. But what did Tony know? He knew physics and engineering, he knew weapons and lasers and seraphim guidance systems. He didn’t know anything about ninjas or secret crime syndicates.

Honestly, Tony wondered why people who were immortal thought to waste their incredibly long lives by selling drugs and murdering rivals. Who decided that with a thousand years or more at their command that ‘oh, I think I’ll sell cocaine in Hell’s Kitchen’ was a good plan? There were so many things Tony could do with just a few extra years, nevermind hundreds of them.

“Slowly, as all things must, the dragons lay down and sunk into eternal sleep. Their bones, so rich with chi, remained as a monument for generations, marking the passing of giants. No one knows who first discovered an elixir, prepared with rare herbs and the powder of dragon bones, would grant the drinker long life. Another, similar, would raise the dead.”

Tony could almost see it; Elektra had a voice even more beautiful than her features. He could close his eyes and see the world she spoke of.

And when he opened them, he could see even more. Mainly the way DareDevil looked at her. A softness to that hard jaw, an ease in the tension of his shoulders.

The hero in love with the vigilante. 

Tale as old as time, tune as old as song. Tony laughed, then waved a hand. “Sorry, just thinking,” he said. “Go on.”

“There’s not much more to tell,” Elektra said. “The Hand was banished from Kun L’un for their heresy and dishonoring of dragons for their personal gain. And they spent trillions to unearth the bones of other dragons to continue their ways. Most recently, the remains of a dragon were found beneath the city.”

“I stopped that,” Dare Devil said. “As far as we know, they didn’t have the opportunity to make any more of the elixir.”

“Your friend comes from beyond the stars,” Elektra said.

**We do,** Venom added, poking his head out of Tony’s shoulder. Venom had been mostly torpid since taking residence in Tony’s skin, like someone with a bad cold might lounge on the sofa, not quite watching television, but not able to sleep. **But we don’t know about dragons.**

“Space is big,” Tony contributed. “Really, really big.”

“You are such a nerd, Stark,” DareDevil scoffed. “I don’t know where people get the idea that you’re cool.”

“Good PR,” Tony said. “Also, I’m rich. That lets me be a trendsetter, not a nerd.”

**What does this have to do with Eddie?**

“Eddie Brock should be dead,” Elektra said with a shrug. “Everyone knows about the chase in San Francisco, the battle over Life Foundation’s rocket. He must have something that makes him immortal, or near enough. If the Hand cannot find dragon bones to melt down, they must find something else, or everything they have worked so many centuries for will fall away.”

“But that’s Venom, not Eddie,” Tony said. 

“They may not know that,” DareDevil said. “Or they’ve got something else in mind, entirely. Venom might be able to obtain the bones for them, in exchange for his host.”

“That’s a steep ransom.”

“It’s only a guess,” DareDevil said. “It’s what I would do.”

Venom practically spun Tony around to glare at the man. **What did you do?**

“He’s spitballing, big guy,” Tony said. “Sometimes the best way to stop a bad guy is to think like a bad guy.”

**We _are_ a bad guy,** Venom declared in a low growl. **We will go in there and kill them all.**

“Not saying that’s a bad plan,” Tony said. “But what if they hurt Eddie in the meanwhile?”

**We can heal him,** Venom said.

“They’ll kill him, even if it means their death, rather than accepting defeat,” Elektra said. “Can you bring back the dead? Would you even want to?”

DareDevil put a hand on Elektra’s wrist. “It’s all right.”

“It is not,” Elektra said. “What they did to me was obscene, blasphemy. An abuse of the gifts of dragons. I will never forgive them.” She turned to Venom with a deep bow. “I will aid you in getting your host back.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Tony said. “I’m not even sure where to start.”

“Leave that to us,” DareDevil said. “We know the Hand.”

**And they are sneaky.**

“And we are sneaky,” Elektra agreed. “We will let you know as soon as we have located him. They will not take him far. New York is their territory these past fifty years or more. All their strong houses and troops are here. With the leaders dead or scattered, the roaches will stick close to their nests. We will flush them out into the open.”

**Where they can be squashed. And eaten.**

“Can we leave me out of the eating of bad guys part of things, maybe? More of a cheeseburgers guy myself. Raw ninja just doesn’t sound appetizing.”

**Wimp.**

“At least I own it,” Tony said. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So News: I've finished writing this, so it will post 1 chapter at a time, every 2 weeks until it's finished, yay.
> 
> Lizard (Dr. Curt Connors) is a Spider-Man villain. He hisses a lot.
> 
> Warning: discussions of torture and interrogation techniques.

“Get your handssss off me,” someone hissed. “Or you will find them on the ground. Next to your head.” They were outside the room; he couldn’t see them yet. Another prisoner?

Eddie raised his head, not sure what was going on. He’d been cuffed to this goddamn chair so long, he couldn’t remember a time when his legs weren’t cramped and when his wrists didn’t have a flower of bruises along them. 

They gave him just enough water that he hadn’t died, and hunger had faded out a while ago. He didn’t even want to talk about the state of his pants. Apparently pee breaks were not part of the whole ninja torture routine.

Eddie twisted his wrist a little, trying to regain feeling in his fingertips. There was a gap in the cuffs. It might be possible to slip out of them, if he could work up some sweat.

Days, he’d decided. He’d been in here for _days_.

“Don’t think for one ssssecond that I’m here as anything other than my own interesssstsss,” the person said, and then the door opened.

More ninjas. Not even the slightest bit interesting, Eddie thought. He wouldn’t have bothered to look up, except that the new, hissy person was in with him.

Another prisoner, probably not. But someone who didn’t have quite as much leverage as he thought he did.

“Hey, welcome to the party, man,” Eddie said, voice cracked and barely audible. The man came into the light and Eddie got his first look. 

Tall, wearing scrubs and one of those white doctor coats. Probably because that was the only kind of clothing that would fit him. Humanoid, but not human. Might have been the thing living in the sewers that gave rise to the rumors about alligators.

Clawed hands with green scales, wide, heavy jaws. No hair. A long tail dragged along behind him, whipping back and forth over the floor. Teeth-- nothing like what Venom had, but still, Eddie wasn’t going to want to make out with him. Ever. Very human eyes, though, and there was something very tragic in them; pain that Eddie could not possibly understand.

“Dude, did you have, like, an accident with a transporter?” Because really, Jeff Goldblum’s movie, _The Fly_ , was the only thing Eddie could think of that would do something like _that_. It certainly couldn’t have been on purpose.

The lizard man hissed at him. “Don’t be sssstupid,’ he said.

“Yeah, I just--” Eddie protested, then shook his head. He was, sometimes, pretty damn stupid. And if this guy wasn’t a prisoner, he was probably an ally to the ninjas. “So, are you with them? Because really, this doesn’t seem like your scene.”

“Yessss? Where do you think my sssscene would be?”

 _Don’t say the zoo, don’t say the zoo,_ Eddie told himself, and for a wonder, he managed to bite it back. “The sewer?”

_Not better, Eddie. Really._

The Lizard whipped around, smacking Eddie in the face with his tail. The scales cut, leaving a dripping wound across Eddie’s cheek. Ow. 

Also, it itched as it bled, and Eddie was still cuffed to the chair. 

“Inssssolent,” the Lizard hissed.

“Yeah, well, you want polite, maybe try meeting me at the club sometime, or calling my office. Being chained to a chair makes me rude,” Eddie said. “What do you want?”

Might as well get down to the chase, right?

“I want-- what I want,” the Lizard said, “is a cure for my condition. What they want isssss the method by which you have achieved greatnesssss.”

“Greatness? Look, dude, anyone will tell you, I am not great,” Eddie protested. “I’ve already told those guys everything I intend to.”

“Yessss,” the Lizard said. “Which issss why they came to me. I would ssssay ssssit down and shut up, but you aren’t going anywhere.”

“Yeah, your pals, they aren’t much for declining their hospitality,” Eddie said. “You’re sure they’re your pals, right? I mean, it would sure suck for them to end up deciding that whatever you’re doing here isn’t worth what they’re paying you. Are they paying you? Because I’m sure there’s better work out--”

“Shut up, or I will rip your tongue out and eat it.”

“That’s--” taking the kink just a little too far, was what Eddie meant to say, but the Lizard leaned forward, sharp claws pinching at Eddie’s face, and Eddie decided that maybe, just maybe, drowning in his own blood in order to make a smart ass remark was not a good trade.

“Better,” the Lizard said. The man pulled up another chair, using that tail, and sat, chin nearly on the table, looking at Eddie with those weirdly human eyes.

There-- (blood)

Was-- (running)

“What are you doing?” Eddie jerked his head to one side, feeling a pressure inside his head. Like talking with Venom, only not.

“We were all lizards, once,” the Lizard said. “Primal, basic. Hungry. Under this monkey brain facade, you’re still a lizard. And, interestingly enough. I can control lizards.”

“I don’t think that’s interesting at all,” Eddie said, twisting his wrist frantically in the cuff. He wasn’t sure what the Lizard was going to do with _control_ , but it wasn’t something he wanted. Venom had done it to him a few times, just taken over, but it hadn’t felt… slimy like this. A violation. And Venom had done it to keep Eddie safe, to protect their host. 

Another inch, maybe. The skin was pushing up against the base of his thumb. Eddie was so close to having a hand free, although what that would do for him now, against a guy with teeth and claws, and no symbiote to heal his wounds--

But Eddie wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

That wasn’t who he was.

Not anymore.

Sometimes it didn’t matter how much you fought. It didn’t matter if you did everything right. It didn’t matter if you deserved it, or if you didn’t. 

Sometimes, you still lost.

That was life.

Captain Picard said it. Kevin Costner said it. Eddie was pretty sure that Beyonce even said it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes, it rains.

_I fought, you weren’t here, I lost._

Eddie discovered that the Lizard could regenerate body parts. Which he might have known, if he’d been paying attention in sixth grade biology. Or literally anything the Lizard had said about how he’d become the Lizard in the first place.

The Lizard kicked him; now that Eddie was down, and held there by a scaly hand reaching into his brain and tapping the earliest parts of it, the undeveloped, lizard brain. Eddie had time around that pain where he could hear everything crystal clear, but couldn’t see or move, or do anything except curl into a ball around the injury to his intestines.

“Do not kill him yet,” one of the ninjas was saying.

“He’s uselesssss,” the Lizard objected. “He doesn’t know anything. The ssssssymbiote is the one who knowsssss. And I don’t think you want one of _thosssse_ living inside your sssskin, immortality or not. You think he’ssss in the driver’sss ssssseat? He’sss not. You think you can control one of those thingsssss? You can’t.”

“...friends,” Eddie managed to gasp. The compulsion, Lizard’s fingers in his brain, was pushing at him, _making_ him volunteer what he knew.

“Sssssee,” the Lizard said. “You have to make friendssss, you’re a hossst for a sssspace-hijacker. I don’t think you people have any real friendsssss at all, much less the capassssscity.”

Eddie didn’t bother to mention that he wasn’t sure the Lizard had the capacity for making friends. Torturing people for fun and profit tended to eat into your ability to make a solid social connection.

Or, at least it would if life was fair and just. He knew an awful lot of assholes who had tons of friends.

But a symbiote… 

_What made you change your mind?_

_You did, Eddie. You did._

The idea that it was Eddie who changed Venom-- Eddie who influenced the symbiote… well, what would a symbiote be, if it had a host like one of these guys? Could they be worse -- worse than Riot, worse than Sleet--

Fuck. 

He was going to have to get up and fucking do something about this, wasn’t he?

* * *

“Boss?” Friday piped up suddenly, while Tony and Venom weren’t doing anything except goddamn waiting before that’s all they could do.

“Tell me you have something.”

“I have something,” Friday repeated, a little snide coloring her biddable remark. “But it’s probably not what you want me to have.”

“Yeah?”

“Two things, really,” she said, which was starting to make Tony nervous. Everything was always a little more horrible than expected whenever his AIs started getting edgy about them. “The first is… well, you know that program we set up to track symbiote activity?”

“Yeah, it keeps an eye on our squishy white friend,” Tony said.

“And other symbiotes,” Friday added.

“Are there--”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, boss. I’ve got seven new readings. All today. Fully formed, popping out of the snow like daisies!”

“I have got to get you new movies to watch,” Tony muttered. “So, uh, where are they? Venom, wake up!” 

**What?**

“Some of your pals just landed on our planet again,” Tony said.

“Two here in New York City,” Friday reported, throwing up a light display of the globe. “Three here, at the Raft, where Sleet’s being remanded. And two more here--”

“What the fuck is in Weschester?” Tony wondered.

“Three more, here, in Florida,” Friday updated. “Another one just either sprang into existence--”

“Or has been hiding somehow, and now it doesn’t feel the need to hide anymore. Fuck. Vee, I know we need Eddie back but--”

“Reports of violence and riots in process at the Raft Correctional Facility,” Friday said. 

“Yeah, that-- we need to put a stop to this. Avengers, assemble.”

* * *

“I’ve got it,” the Lizard said. “Took a while, the creature that posssssessssessss him has a delicate and unusual thought pattern. No lizard sssstock there, their evolution was unique.”

The ninja dude didn’t say anything, didn’t even look interested, but there was a tension in the shoulders and neck that spoke of some urgency.

Eddie could barely move. Everything he owned hurt. Without Venom, he was nothing. Without someone holding him up, he couldn’t stop anything. He sagged in his bonds, unable to fight.

But maybe he’d done something-- enough.

“This issss the frequency,” the Lizard said. “The creatures you reach do not ssspeak our language. Not any of them. But when they bond with a human host, you will be able to negotiate.”

Like Drake had been able to negotiate with Riot. Like Eddie could talk to Venom. Like Sleet-- but what each Klyntar wanted was different, and they would change, and adapt, to the goals of their hosts. That was what Eddie was hoping, the message he’d embedded carefully into the memory, what the Hand would use to call the Klyntar to them.

Don’t trust these people. They want to use you for their own ends. But there are hosts here. There are worthy companions. Here.

The Klyntar might not even hear to call. Or care. If they had other worlds to conquer, other places to be, other goals. There was no way to know.

But if they did come, at least they’d come forewarned that Earth was already a battleground.

Which, come to think of it, might not have been the best idea. 

Riot and Venom had come to earth after they found Drake’s spacecraft, after they knew what they could expect from earth and from humans. They were wrong, because not all humans were greedy corporate tools. Some of them, like Eddie, were barely scraping by, human trashfires, trying to survive.

But also people who loved, and who wanted things to be better, and who tried to help. If the Klyntar came and bonded with someone good, someone determined and willful and wonderful.

Well, maybe they’d all have a chance, then.

Wouldn’t they?

“Do we need him for anything else? I’m hungry,” the Lizard said.

Ew.


	9. Chapter 9

There were times when Tony wished to Christ that Steve had been slightly less of an asshole. This was at least five of them. 

“You want to what, now?” Tony demanded, like he hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard.

“You need our help, we’re coming in,” Steve said.

“I thought we were staying out of each other’s way?”

“And I said if you ever needed us, we’d be there.”

The bitch of it was, Tony _did_ need them. The world needed them. “Okay, we’ll hash out the legality of the situation later. For right now, let’s just say we’re consulting with the A-team. Friday, start patching that through to legal and the counsel. As long as they know what’s going on, this can still be managed.”

“Lovely,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “What’s the situation?”

“Hostile -- possibly -- aliens. Klyntar, like Venom. They’re all over the fucking place, and I don’t have enough team members to tag and bag them all.”

“I can form up a few teams,” Steve offered, and it was an offer, which was such a bitch, because it was easier to be mad at Steve than it was to work with him. But Tony didn’t have time for petty disputes. This was exactly the situation that Tony had been arguing about since the Accords happened, and now was exactly the time to put into play with the rest of the world that they needed the Avengers. Together.

“I’ve got five hotspots, including the Raft. I think for everyone’s interests, the official Avengers ought to handle that one,” Tony said. “One group in Westchester, one group in the city, and one in Florida, and one in San Diego.”

“Florida Man,” someone was singing in the background.

“Say hi to Clint,” Tony said, because he could be gracious. “We’ve got the Raft and the City, send your groups to Westchester, and Florida, and if you’ve got one or two extra people, we can meet up with your people in California.”

 **They might be looking for us, there** , Venom offered. 

“All right, we’re on it,” Steve said. “I’ll send Wanda to San Diego, she’s the only one who can travel that far, that fast.”

Tony popped up a message group. “Right. Have Maximoff rendezvous with Strange and Wong, they’re on retainer, and they can all do the magic stuff together.” Plus neither of the wizards of Bleeker Street had history with Wanda, so they’d be the most likely to work together. “I’m sending She-hulk, Vision, and Spidey to the Raft, they’re our heavy lifters. Got me and Venom and some new recruits here in the city.” As long as Daredevil and Elektra were around, he could probably recruit them, right?

“If you want, I’ll send Hope to Westchester, she can meet up with Scott, I know they have some stuff to work out.”

“I’ll go with them,” Steve said. “It’s not that far from the city, and if you need backup--”

“Thanks, Cap.”

“And Sam, Natasha, and Clint can handle Florida.”

“Awww, palm trees, no,” Clint muttered.

“You can find something else to perch in, birdbrain,” Tony muttered. He noticed that Steve was keeping Barnes out of the line of fire. He wondered briefly if that was because of him, because of Barnes, or because of something else. He decided it didn't matter. 

“Tell me about these Klyntar,” Steve suggested.

**We don’t want to.**

“I know, big guy,” Tony told Venom. “But we need the help. Cap, they’re particularly vulnerable to fire, and certain high pitched frequencies, I’ll send you the exact wavelength and decibels. Also, outside of a host, they’re not very big and can be contained in polyglass crates. They can forcibly inhabit a host, human or otherwise, which lets them get all big and teethy, like Vee here. Don’t let them touch you -- I don’t know what a hostile habitation is like, but I don’t think we need to fight each other. Again.”

“All right,” Steve said. “Good luck, keep in touch.”

“I may route you to Friday, depending on how busy I am,” Tony said. 

“Copy that,” Steve said. “And-- Tony?”

“Yes?”

“It’s good to see you again,” Steve said. And the screen went dark.

“I swear to god, what is it about Cap and wanting to get the last word in?”

 **We could just eat him,** Venom suggested **. And then we will get the last word in.**

“Don’t tempt me, big guy,” Tony said. “Honestly, we need him. There are not enough powered people yet to make a good defense of the planet. This is like not even a dozen aliens. Last time we had _thousands_.”

 **We can be problematic** , Venom said. **Even in small numbers. Are we going to get Eddie back?**

“I’m hoping these new cousins of yours are here for Eddie,” Tony said, “and will lead us right to him. Let’s get suited up and go.”

**My suit? Or yours?**

“That sounds like a great pickup line,” Tony said. “Let’s go with you for right now and I’ll keep my suit as a backup for when we find Eddie.”

* * *

Stephen Strange did not roll his eyes when Wanda Maximoff, the so-called Scarlet Witch, appeared out of a magenta ring. It wasn’t like sorcery had an aesthetic that was standardized, so it wasn’t the color that bothered him. His own portals tended to be yellow with charged runes. Maximoff’s ring was like a thick liquid, splashing and spilling energy everywhere. She hadn’t had much -- if any -- training.

Which made her dangerous.

And she exuded an aura of utmost confidence. There was a sorcerer who had no doubts as to whether or not she should do a thing.

Stephen had been doing his best to ignore her; he had a duty to the planet he was trying to protect, but that was from otherworldly creatures, most of the time. Not something home grown.

That said, he and Wong had been pursuing Mordo for some time. Just because he was home grown didn’t mean he wasn’t an extreme danger. Although mostly to other sorcerers.

“Remind me to speak with her about the League,” Stephen said. A batch of loosely affiliated magicians, sorcerers, wizards and warlocks, the League kept an eye on each other, in case something happened. Something like Mordo, but it could in fact, be something like the Witch.

Stephen didn’t necessarily like Tony Stark all that much, but he did recognize that, annoying as the man could be, he had the best interests of the most number of people in mind. Save the planet, be home for supper, that was Stark’s motto. If he was so plebeian as to have a motto. 

“Do you think she will work with the League?” Wong wondered. She hadn’t approached them yet, and Stephen had seen Wong slide his fingers to create a subtle shield, in case she was eavesdropping.

Stephen shrugged. “Everyone should get a chance to do the right thing.”

“Well, as you are on your thirteen hundredth chance,” Wong said.

“I daresay getting killed a thousand times by Dormammu doesn’t count as a _wrong thing_ ,” Stephen protested. 

“You tampered with time, haphazardly,” Wong said. “So each time was a wrong thing.”

“Philosophy arguments some other time, gentlemen,” Maximoff said, coming up to them. “I’ve found our aliens while you were rehashing old arguments.”

Stephen changed his mind, and quite obviously rolled his eyes. Maximoff was not in charge here, no matter what delusions she was operating under. “Thank you, Miss Maximoff, for doing the grunt work.”

“So we have a plan?” Maximoff didn’t catch the dig as to her base usefulness.

“Trap it in the mirror dimension,” Stephen said. “That will give us time, and hopefully few innocent bystanders. You _can_ teleport to the mirror dimension, can’t you?”

“Condescending ass,” Maximoff said. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Stephen said. “Wong, do you have a spare ring for our young friend here?”

“After Kaecilius pulled his little trick on you, nearly getting us trapped forever, I never go anywhere without a spare,” Wong said. 

“Trust one’s teacher to constantly remind one of mistakes made,” Stephen said. “All right, my dear. Keep close on Wong’s heels and we’ll be able to get you in and back. Don’t lose the ring.”

“One ring to bind them all,” Wanda said, sliding it onto her fingers.

Instantly Stephen decided she might not be that bad. Really. 

“Let’s go,” Stephen said. “And don’t let it touch you.”

* * *

Sam Wilson was the first man on the planet to admit when he’d been wrong about a thing.

At least to himself. He might not have been so willing to admit wrongness in front of other people. It was a defense mechanism in the military and, even more importantly, in life.

As a black man, his daddy had once told him, he had to work four times as hard to be thought half as good. His momma, who’d thrown a shoe at Daddy for saying so, had privately agreed, and said it was worse again for women, and even worse for black women.

“White men think they’re king of the world,” she’d said.

“That’s an awful lot of kings,” Sam had replied, trying to puzzle it out in his eight-year-old brain. “They can’t all be kings.”

“Might be so, Sammie,” his momma had said. “But it doesn’t change a thing. But you work hard -- for you, you understand, not for any pretend kings -- and you stand by your word, and you’ll be okay, even in a world of kings.”

Sam had learned a few other things, growing up and being in the Army, and one of them was, never admit to being wrong. Fix it, of course, but once you said, as a black man, that something was your fault, it was always your fault, forever and ever, no matter what.

Fixing the thing and not acknowledging it was the better path for Sam’s peace of mind.

But looking out at what was going on in Jacksonville with Stark’s alien invasion, he thought he might just have been wrong about Tony Stark.

Bullets had no effect on these guys, nor did Nat’s shock sticks. Fire worked to keep the aliens off of you, but they’d just go somewhere else to make mayhem, and that left civilians vulnerable. Also, fire didn’t really care what it burned, and while there were a lot of people who might have agreed that Jacksonville wasn’t going to be missed if it turned into a dark smudge on the ground, it seemed a little Shermanesque to Sam.

“Stark, we need--”

“The boss anticipated your request,” one of Stark’s artificial intelligences said in Sam’s ear. Friday, he thought her name was, and it was always just a little off, hearing an AI talk with a Scottish accent. For some reason, he’d gotten accustomed to JARVIS. “He’s added a command to the interface control of your EXO pack. Get close to them, activate it. It’s a sound based command, so he recommends for safety, you wear ear protection. The symbiote creatures will be rendered helpless for only a few moments, so act quickly to secure them. I estimate, based on current fuel levels, you have enough for six blasts, provided you can close with them in a timely manner.”

“Timely manner,” Sam muttered. “I’ll show him ‘timely manner.’”

“Would you like me to have city traffic cameras record your maneuvers?” Friday was a cheeky girl.

“Yeah, yeah, I’d like to see Captain America do _this_ ,” Sam said, launching himself into the air. “Get ready with the glass tubes, guys.”

“Clean up duty, yay,” Clint said.

* * *

“I can’t see ‘em,” Peter yelled, panicked. 

“They’re right there in front of you,” Jenn Walters replied, exasperated. More commonly known as She-Hulk, Jenn had turned into a full Hulk after a blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner. Although she wasn’t the angry kind of Hulk.

Which meant she was big, green, and up to her neck in idiots _all the time_. Maybe she was the angry kind of Hulk after all.

The symbiotes had discovered very quickly into the fight that she was impossible to kill, and not a good candidate for possession, either, and so they were chasing after the less durable members of the party.

Peter usually was one of their best; quick and agile, smart and strong. And sticky, as he would say. But he was practically tripping over his own feet today.

“They don’t-- show up on spidey-sense,” Peter complained. “They might as well be invisible.”

“Right,” Jenn said. “Okay, then, don’t fight them. Assist _me_.” Maybe if she was in danger, Peter’s sense would kick back in. No one really knew how it worked; radioactive spider being lost to time and study because Peter didn’t know enough to keep the corpse.

“If you can tempt them to the surface,” the Vision said in his crisp, unemotional voice, “I will activate the sonic boom. Despite members of the Raft being criminals, it seems unfair to cause permanent hearing damage.”

“Good thinking. Peter… run!”


	10. Chapter 10

“I would like to take a vacation after this,” Daredevil complained. Witty banter during combat; it seemed to be a thing. Maybe Tony just attracted the right sort of people. He was really impressed with how neat Daredevil managed to make it sound, as if he wasn’t twisting and turning, using that weird chain-nunchuck weapon with ease. Just a normal, everyday conversation between professional heroes. 

“We tried that once,” Elektra replied. She was busy sticking knives into ninjas, so it came out a little more breathy than exasperated. As Tony had gathered, she was more like an anti-hero, vigilante type, so maybe she got a pass on witty repartee. 

“Anywhere without ninjas,” Daredevil clarified.

Tony wasn’t worried about the ninjas. They couldn’t hurt Venom, and by extension, couldn’t hurt Tony, but they were annoying. And persistent. “How many of these guys are there?”

“The Hand is innumerable,” one of the ninjas intoned. 

**No one asked you** , Venom snarled, grabbing the ninja with multiple limbs and twisting. Out of respect for Tony’s so-called weak stomach, they did not, in fact, tear the man to pieces, but Tony could tell it was getting to be a close thing.

“Come on, guys,” Tony said, trying to be reasonable. “The more you fight us, the more of you we’re going to have to kill, and I get that you’re all noble for your cause, but maybe you could give your brothers some slack, and--”

Venom did rip the next one apart.

So much for brotherhood.

“You cannot reason with people who wish to become immortal,” Elektra said. “They cannot hear you over the sounds of their delusions.”

Poetic, but useless.

“This is not getting us any closer to our goal,” Tony protested.

Venom yanked themselves out of Tony’s shoulder long enough to give Tony one of those Looks. **Get us closer** , they demanded, and when Tony leaped forward, still enjoying on some level the way nothing hurt when Venom was inside him, the way his knees were as good as new, the way he was stronger and faster, the way-- the way he felt like he could be young and strong forever. Maybe even the way Steve felt, all the time.

Venom lunged out at the next ninja, mouth agape to bite, but-- didn’t. Instead, their tongue slithered out, and plunged into the ninja’s mouth. The ninja struggled, muffled screams coming from their throat as they stabbed at Venom’s mass, not even making a dent in symbiotic skin.

A moment later, Venom let go, and the ninja shrieked, and then ran off into the darkness. Tony could hear the man screaming, sobbing, as he went. Well, Venom did have some really impressive French kissing technique, but maybe it wasn’t that guy’s thing.

“What did you do?”

 **Got what we needed,** Venom said. **Get your suit.**

Tony thought Venom was being the suit today, but whatever. He activated the nanites. “Better take a leap, Jello.” The suit started closing up around him, and Venom leaped out through Tony’s mouth just before the face mask slammed home.

He staggered. After wearing Venom around for most of three days, Tony wasn’t sure that he remembered how to be human anymore. The inky blob that was an unhosted symbiote waved a tendril at Tony in farewell and zipped off.

“Where’s he going in such a hurry?”

“Probably found a drainpipe to slither through,” Tony said. That might even have been true, but Venom hadn’t bothered to let Tony know what the plan was. If Eddie were here, somewhere, Venom would find him.

Tony hoped.

There were still ninjas. Which seemed unfair, but Tony got to work. On the plus side, he could practically fight in the suit with his eyes closed. “Friday, keep an eye on goo-boy, would you?”

“Of course, Boss,” Friday said. How an AI that didn’t have physical lips could sound like she was smiling, Tony wasn’t quite sure, but she did. As far as Tony knew -- he’d never actually talked with Friday about it -- the AI was fond of Eddie, but she _adored_ Venom. Maybe he should put that on his list of things to discuss. Why bodiless AIs seemed to like the weirder people. JARVIS had had a particularly soft spot for the Hulk.

Maybe it was just bonding from an outsider point of view.

“Report in from Captain America,” Friday said. “They’ve subdued one symbiote in their designated target area. The other one has gone into a deep host and my systems can no longer locate them. He is requesting backup and advice.”

“Give him advice, but there’s no backup to be had,” Tony complained. “Check with the other teams, see if there’s anything we can shake loose?” Tony didn’t bother to go on his standard rant about the fact that if Captain Tight-Ass had signed the Accords when Tony had asked him to, they might have been able to do more recruiting.

“Lady Thor says she can cover for them, they’re almost done at the Raft,” Friday said. “I’m dispatching her godliness to them now.”

Well, that would be a treat. He was pretty sure that, even when Lady Thor was just Doctor Foster, she hadn’t met Captain America. He wondered what she’d think of him.

“Keep an ear on the sitch, Friday,” Tony told her.

“Would you like street cam footage? Or I can negotiate an exchange of data with the Renegades personal comms.”

“Where’d they get that tech from?”

“It’s black market,” Friday reported. “Probably Baintech, but without looking at the exact piece, I can’t say for sure.”

“Great,” Tony muttered. Sunset Bain was one of his first competitors, and had, in fact, stolen some of his early prototypes in an ill-advised affair some twenty years ago. “Could someone please inform the Captain that, the next time he wants to throw rocks at me for knowing who a damn weapons dealer is that he’s buying illegal tech, and therefore, just as much of a prick as I am?”

“I don’t think anyone is as much of a prick--” Friday started, but was interrupted by flying ninja kick that Tony had to focus on. Getting stabbed with one of those off-shaped weapons would be unfortunate. Also, embarrassing. Who really wanted the nurse at the Emergency Room to know you’d been stabbed with a Red Demon Ninja blade or some such ridiculous notions. It’s not like the Hand were real ninjas.

“They’re not, are they?” Tony said.

“Not what?” Daredevil threw someone into the side of a building with bone-crunching force.

“Real ninjas. I thought those guys didn’t really look like this; this is just bad hollywood--”

“Can we discuss cultural appropriation in the martial arts later?”

“Did you have something better to do?”

“Fight ninjas?” Daredevil didn’t add the duh on the end of his sentence, but Tony could all but hear it hanging there in the air.

“Right. Back to work, Friday,” Tony said. How many damn ninjas were there? The answer seemed to be somewhat more than they could adequately handle. Tony didn’t want to point fingers and make accusations, but they’d been stuck in this holding pattern for almost twenty minutes. Which meant someone was delaying them for some reason.

“Did I ever stop working?”

“Yeah, yeah, Energizer Bunny,” Tony said. “Give me a status on Venom, please. And do a drone sweep of the area, I have a feeling we’re sitting in a trap.”

* * *

Steve Rogers didn’t quite know what had happened; one moment, he was fighting something outside himself that was blue and black, somewhat human shaped, with teeth and claws and blades for hands. Powerful.

And the next moment, he was on the ground, clutching at his head and listening to a tiny voice inside his chest.

The shield was on the ground, spinning like a coin at the end of its run, wom wom wom, until it landed on the pavement and was still.

** You don’t have to listen to them anymore. **

“What?”

** They cage you in. Try to restrain you. But you know what is right. You’ll do the right thing. You always have. Always will. **

** Let go. **

There was something else, some _one_ else, in his mind.

**They’ve hurt him, trying to keep him from helping himself. Doesn’t that make you angry?**

The voice was louder now, talking to him about Bucky, who he’d nearly killed friends in order to protect, an act that haunted him. Tony wouldn’t talk about it, and Steve almost didn’t blame him. Maybe the best thing had been to just let it be over.

**It’s not.**

**You could make him see.**

How?

**You can make him-- do whatever you want.**

How?

**You can make him one of us.**

Steve struggled with the voice in his brain. It was offering him everything that he wanted. Some way to repair his relationship with Tony, a way to keep Bucky safe. A way to make everyone see that he’d been right, that rejecting the Accords was the right thing to do. The Avengers were good people, they protected the world.

They didn’t have time to be bogged down in petty bureaucracy and the world’s political maneuvering.

They were the Avengers, god damn it.

**That’s right. Let me help you.**

* * *

“Miss Friday,” the Vision said. He engaged in evasive behavior.

“LIttle busy here, little brother,” Friday said, cheerfully in his ear. He was not, in fact, younger than she was, although perhaps she was counting from days of inception and not days functioning. In either case, the Vision’s processes always paused a moment at that misnomer before moving on to the point of the conversation.

“Yes, I am aware,” the Vision said. “Regretfully, I must make a busier situation moreso. The symbiotic life forms have infected Ms. Walter and Mr. Parker.”

“Spidey and She-Hulk are compromised?” Friday demanded. The Vision knew that she’d heard him, and processed the words correctly. “What about Lady Thor?”

“Regrouping as we speak,” the Vision said. “We request advice and backup.”

“No backup to be had, baby brother,” Friday said. “You have authorization to fire on friendlies.”

The Vision shook his head. “We will not emulate that behavior. There must be something else--”

“Try sound-blasting them into compliance,” Friday suggested. “Between you and LT, something should be able to rattle them.”

“Take ‘em to church,” Mr. Stark said, over comms.

“Downloading appropriate references,” Friday told him. The Vision scanned the report; Venom and his host had experienced painful separation when influenced by nearby church bells. “Best chance to get ‘em out of there without causing permanent hearing damage to Parker and Walters.”

“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” the Vision chirped.

“Are you getting biblical with them, Viz? You bring the wrath,” Mr. Stark cheered.

* * *

“Yeah, this is Falcon to any Avenger near South Carolina,” Sam spat into his comm unit. He probably didn’t want to thank Tony Stark, but he was thanking Tony goddamn Stark for rebuilding his wings, because he was ahead of the great black blobs and intending to stay that way. “I got two hostiles inbound to the Raft -- I think.”

“Please elaborate, Mr. Wilson,” Tony’s AI said. “Avengers are not thick on the ground.”

“Clint and Nat are compromised and chasing me in the Quinjet, I really need a goddamn hand here!” He was pretty sure it was only the pack’s maneuvering capabilities that had kept him from being caught; he certainly wasn’t able to fly supersonic in his bare skin and kevlar-mesh vest.

“I can be in Charleston in five minutes, Sammie,” a reassuring voice was on the line. Despite everything -- and Sam did mean everything -- Jim Rhodes had always been some kind of damn hero to one Samuel Wilson. They’d had a few clandestine meet ups after the fall--

“Glad to hear your voice, my brother,” Sam said. “What have you got for me?”

“Sonic boom,” Jim said, “and the right frequency on War Machine’s repulsors. Be ready to catch our baby birds, because I’m gonna knock ‘em right out of the sky.”

“Did you just tell me--”

“And, uh, watch your tailfeathers,” Jim said. “You don’t want me to burn you up.”

“I see why War Machine was a good name for you, reckless, half-cocked, flyboy--”

Sam was still trying to think of names bad enough to call Jim when War Machine dropped out of the sky and ripped the top of the Quinjet off, tossing it into the Clark Sound.

“Watch it, man,” Sam whined. “There’s river dolphins in there!”

“I’ll apologize later,” Jim promised. He snatched an emergency pack off the Quinjet’s walls and thrust it at Clint’s chest. Emergency chute. “Here, catch.” He grabbed Clint by the back of the neck and tossed him into the air, firing several rounds of concussive repulsor blasts at him. 

Which might have worked out well, except Natasha jumped on him from behind and jammed black tendrils into the suit. 

“Sam!”

“Keep your shirt on, I’m coming!” Sam threw Clint even higher, keeping hold of his parachute cord, which opened up. Hopefully that would keep Clint out of trouble for a few minutes.

“You probably want Rhodey to take his shirt _off_ , in fact,” Clint said, weakly over comms. “Watch your ear, War Machine.

Sam looked up just long enough to see Clint with his bow out, floating steadily down.

He shot-- the radio in the Quinjet, which exploded with sound.

Punk rock sound, in fact.

Daft Punk’s synthesized music poured out of the speakers at top volume.

**Work it Make it Do it Makes us / Harder Better Faster Stronger**

Natasha shrieked, put her hands to her ears--

Rhodey grabbed the tendrils, yanked, and--

“Oh, fuck, look out for the building!”


	11. Chapter 11

**We’ve got you.**

That wasn’t Venom’s voice. Eddie wasn’t sure how he knew that. He wasn’t even positive who he was, what he needed. He was a mass of aches and agony, of grief and loss, that had once been a man.

**You called us and we came.**

The Klyntar.

Like Venom. Eddie groaned. He’d called the Klyntar with some purpose in mind. To kill the Hand. To--

**Several of us came. Warlords and leaders. We came for you. We came for Carnage. We came for Sleet. We came for Venom. We came for hosts. We came.**

“Something tells me that’s not a good thing,” Eddie muttered. He was feeling-- 

\--better.

“Who are you?”

He felt the creature shifting through his mind, selecting a word that fit their concept of themselves.

\--no, you can’t have _Doom_ , that’s copyright infringement--

**Judgement. We are the ones who decide.**

Decide what? For who?

**Yes, exactly.**

Don’t you even get any ideas, Eddie thought, and strange how powerful that thought seemed. She-- and unlike Venom, who Eddie thought of as he, or sometimes them, Judgement seemed somehow female. But not in a nurturing kind of way, but more--

**There are many Klyntar here. They do not all belong. They have not all earned it. We will judge them, and find if they are lacking.**

Definitely did not sound good.

 **You are a good host** , Judgement said. **This will be taken into consideration. Come now, we will bring you back to your symbiote.**

Eddie felt her lift him, her body inside his, moving his aching legs, snapping the bonds at his wrists with ease.

“What happened to the Hand?”

**They were-- unnecessary.**

Eddie swallowed uneasily. He knew -- probably -- what that meant.

**And we were hungry.**

Yep. Guessed it in one.

“What about the Lizard?” Eddie wondered, because that guy was fucking creepy. But also, probably didn’t taste too good.

**The other life form fled.**

Right. Still out there.

 **You are a very good host** , Judgement said, again. **You should come back with us.**

Maybe it was just a slow day at Casa de Eddie. His brain had been turned to mush along with the rest of him. Really, he was almost shocked that he was still alive for the symbiote to heal him. “Come where?”

**To the stars.**

Huh. That wasn’t something he’d ever expected. That wasn’t something Venom had ever even _suggested_.

Venom claimed they were a loser, among their own kind. Riot had been almost more than they could handle. Judgement… seemed stronger, somehow.

**We are strong.**

“And you want me to go to space, with you. As _your_ host?”

 **Venom is not unworthy,** Judgement said. **They could partake.**

Great. The fantastic interstellar gang bang. “I’ll consider it.”

**We can give you anything -- everything -- that you want.**

“What I want, lady, is _Venom--_ ”

It might have been just a coincidence, or some sort of cosmic fate wake up call, but there Venom was, and Eddie could see them the same way other Klyntar saw them. Smaller, weaker. Clever, in a society that did not value cleverness.

And there was something else. Something more.

Eddie realized it was Judgement, using him as a lens. To see Venom surrounded by the soft glow of-- love.

It wasn’t that Eddie didn’t know that Venom loved him, or that he loved Venom. But seeing it, like a shimmery aura around the Klyntar was something else. Like one of those high school rom-coms where the main character was surrounded by little glitter hearts.

**EDDIE!**

Eddie never knew how to separate himself from Venom, on the few occasions it had happened. Venom took over those mechanics, or was driven out by sound--

So trying to rip himself out of Judgement--

To reach his lover, his friend, his symbiote, the only one for him that could ever be--

Was like trying to swim through glue and breathe peanut butter.

Judgement was holding him, making it impossible to move, making him stay, making him struggle uselessly against the being that wanted to keep him. He couldn’t move. It was impossible.

And then it wasn’t.

His hand slipped out from the gluey mess that was Judgement, broke free, his skin against the air, and Venom was leaping for him.

**EDDIE, EDDIE, EDDIE**

He’d felt that once before, when Riot and Venom were fighting, the shoving, pushing, skating, tussle, tangle of more than one person trying to assert dominance.

Judgement was shocked, and more than shocked, when Venom pushed them out, made their way clear, claimed Eddie once more.

**Mine!**

“Yours, darling, always,” Eddie said. It seemed like a good time to pass out and he really wished he could. Just lose himself in dreams, and wake up when it was all over. Have Tony there to explain what had happened, help him to the shower, reassure him that everything was fine.

**Everything is not fine.**

“Yeah, somehow I figured that much,” Eddie said. Because nothing was ever easy, and Eddie was part of a group of special people, which meant he couldn’t continue to sluff off his responsibilities to someone else. _I called them._

**The Klyntar?**

**He did,** Judgement said **. He called us and we came. We came for hosts, we came for conquest.**

**There’s nothing here for you. Take the Hand for hosts, if you want them, but _take_ them.**

Take them and leave, Eddie reads that. This was a pretty planet, he remembers Venom saying, pretty. But it wouldn’t be for long if the Klyntar came in force. They destroyed and they conquered and they moved on.

**We don’t have to.**

Judgement was calm, quiet, and Eddie wasn’t sure. He knew her (them? Her? Judgement felt _female_ to him in a way he couldn’t explain.) well enough to know she wasn’t challenging Venom. She wasn’t saying, we don’t have to do what you say, we will fight you and win. But… softer, somehow.

**We don’t have to conquer. We don’t have anywhere else to go. You-- you are here. We could live in peace.**

Eddie nearly drowned in Venom’s disbelief.

**Not all of us. But some could stay. We will call a council and decide.**

**That’s probably more than we should have expected,** Venom said, muttering in Eddie’s ear. 

**We will take the Hand as a gesture of good faith.**

Venom wasn’t sure whose good faith it was a gesture on the part of. A host, or a meal, or a favor to the Earthers? They would have to see, Venom supposed. 

“Tony?”

 **He is fine.** Eddie got a flash of the last few days, Tony and Venom working together, to save Eddie. The rest of the Avengers, the Renegades, the invasion. 

_I don’t trust her._

**Neither do we.**

But there was nothing that could be done, not now. **We will all meet,** Venom offered. **Call them.**

From somewhere inside Venom’s body, they found Eddie’s comms unit and slid it in his ear. “Tony-- Iron Man, this is Venom, we’re back in action.”

“Thank Christ,” Tony said. “We’re right on top of your position, get ready to hit the floor and cover your ears.”

“Belay that,” Eddie said. “Babe, we’re gonna have a peace talk. Get the damn WSC together, and the rest of the Avengers. We’re gonna hash this out like civilized aliens.”

**We are not civilized.**

*

Tony knew an awful lot about pretending to be fine. He’d spent years with that mantra; _I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m okay, I think I did okay, are you okay, Tony? I’m fine._

He knew about keeping up the facade, because the second you let it crack, the whole house fell in and you were in the basement, walking on broken glass trying to find the light. He knew about lying; lying to himself, lying to everyone around him. Hiding from the truth, that he was not okay, wasn’t even a little bit okay. Because that truth was dangerous. Caustic.

Unfortunately, it also burned you, from the inside out and unless something made it stop, it could leave nothing behind at all, just a bitter, fragile shell.

All of which meant--

Nothing. He had no idea how to help Eddie, because Eddie had been the reason Tony had finally gotten help.

Accidentally.

On the other hand, Eddie wasn’t trying so hard to live up to people’s expectations. Or maybe, he didn’t try so hard to live down to them.

But in either case, Eddie had been the one to encourage Tony to get into therapy. 

“You doing all right?”

Eddie didn’t even bother to look at Tony, all his attention was focused on the -- exceptionally boring, as far as Tony was concerned -- World Security Council meeting.

Things were not going well, but it was the WSC that was going to get its ass handed to it, probably.

The Klyntar were the first species that had tried to go to the table, make a treaty. The other aliens that Tony knew had either remained hidden, or had invaded.

Maybe there were others.

“You know, you’re kinda the hero of the day,” Tony muttered. “Much better than when I’ve been in this room for saving the day. You actually saved the day. I just blew a bunch of stuff up.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, you boomers say we all killed the various enterprises, but I think Millennials will surprise you. We’re all about findin’ a solution to what got dumped in our laps.”

“The kids are okay,” Tony agreed. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I’m fine.”

There was that word again.

“Steve’s not,” Tony said. He shouldn’t feel smug about that, or pleased, or vindicated or any of the things he did. He’d learned not to try to stifle what he was feeling, though. Steve deserved to have at least one alien in his head. Maybe he’d get half a clue about what they were up against. “He’s having a serious freak. First time he hasn’t been in charge of his own destiny…”

“That guy is a control freak,” Eddie said.

Privately, Tony agreed. Steve had been fighting against anyone telling him what to do for so long, he went against 117 countries to fight the accords. As it was, Tony still didn’t see his little buddy Barnes in with the Renegades. “Well, now he knows the other side of the coin. There’s gotta be no more of this ‘lose together’ bullshit. The Earth needs defenders.”

“You think the Klyntar are going to do that?”

“I think they’ve never been volunteered good hosts before,” Tony observed. “There’s a lot of resources on the planet. We can share. We can work together. They help us, we help them.”

“Some of those guys,” Eddie said, “they’re not, you know. Good guys. Really, really bad, in fact.”

“Same as humans,” Tony said.

 **You are a forgiving sort.** Venom hadn’t been paying much attention to the proceedings either, until Elektra came out to give testimony on how this shit all started in the first place. **The Hand are very bad guys.**

“And I would be committing dereliction of duty if I encouraged you to eat them,” Tony said. But they all know Tony would look the other way, if it came down to it.

**We know.**

“Right, so… Venom’s hostile and feeling the need for revenge, Eddie’s pretending to be fine, I’m hoping we can make a truce, and Steve should get therapy. Adequate summary?” He give Eddie a little side eye. “Steve might not be the only one-- I know what it’s like to be helpless like that, and be hurt. Probably wouldn’t make it worse to talk to a counselor about it?”

“Flip you for it,” Eddie said. “I’m not the only one messed up about what happened.”

Tony didn’t even hesitate. He always had a coin in his pocket, just in case he got to use the line “here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.”

He flipped it, and almost the whole room turned around to watch it shine, spinning in the air.

Before Tony caught it again, Venom whipped out a limb and snatched it from the descending arc. Damn, their goo was fast.

**We win. You both go.**


End file.
